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Lubitz’s three-pointer lifts Mio past Alcona

LINCOLN – Two teams entered Monday night’s important early season North Star League matchup with perfect 2-0 records to start the season and in the end the Alcona home crowd was silenced as Mio’s Ben Lubitz nailed a three as time expired to lift the Mio boys basketball team to an incredible road victory over Alcona, 47-46.

Mio head coach Mike Kann called a timeout with six seconds left after Alcona’s Nate Swinson connected on two clutch free throws to give Alcona a 46-44 lead.

Mio was able to inbound the ball and get it in the hands of its best player, who dribbled the ball up the court before going to his right and finding just enough space to get a shot off and draining a game-winning three as buzzer went off.

“We had that play set up. Ben is obviously our best player and our goal was just to get the ball in his hands with a full head of steam up the court and it was up to him to dump off, to drive, or to pull up and shot and luckily the defender backed off and he pulled up and hit the game winner,” Kann said.

Alcona (2-1) got off to a hot start early in the game and was on fire from three-point land as five of its six field goals in the opening quarter came from behind the long line. The Tigers went on to make seven three-point shots in the first half, but were limited to just two in the second half, one of which came at a crucial time in the game when Mio had a 44-41 lead with under 30 seconds remaining when Swinson buried a triple to tie the game at 44-44.

“It was a great experience for the kids just to be in a tight game with a well coached team. I think the kids have learned a ton and when we do what we do, when we space and make reads everything looks real clean, but sometimes we have trouble maintaining that because we’re so young and we will get better over time,” Alcona coach Toby Suttle said. “I told the kids during the final timeout that we were going to double Lubitz, we knew the ball was going to him and we needed to make sure we didn’t give him any space to shoot and unfortunately we didn’t get the job done on that play. Big time players make big time shots in big time games and that’s what happened and think we have a ton to learn from that situation.”

One of the key factors throughout the second half and later stages of the game was Mio’s ability to prevent the Tigers from hurting it with the three-point shot and also Mio’s ability to make free throws late in the game was crucial. The Thunderbolts struggled with free throws in the first half, but made 7-of-9 in the fourth quarter to make Lubitz’s late game heroics possible.

Lubitz led all scorers pouring in 30 points on the night. Alec Link led Alcona with 20 points and Swinson added 12 points.

With the win, Mio improves to 3-0 overall and in conference play. The Thunderbolts will have a three week break before their next game.

“Our goal was to go undefeated into the break and I knew this was going to be a good road test for us and to come away with a win and now have time to get better is awesome. Now we have a three week break to kind of fine tune the things we need to work on,” Kann said.

The Tigers will have a quick turnaround as they will travel to Tawas on Wednesday.

MIO (47): B. Lubitz 11 7-9 30; C. Spies 0 0-4 0; G. Anderson 1 2-3 4; R. McMaster 3 1-2 9; T. Thornton 1 1-2 4.

ALCONA (46): T. Hutchinson 3 1-2 9; D. Mills 1 0-2 2; A. Link 8 1-1 20; H. Sullivan 1 0-0 3; N. Swinson 3 3-4 12.

Jonny Zawacki can be reached via email at jzawacki@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5690.

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