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An improbable victory

ROGERS CITY-After a tumultuous week, the Rogers City girls basketball team made the improbable happen on Wednesday.

Kayla Rabeau scored 22 points and the Hurons upset Onaway 53-45 during a Class D district semifinal at Rogers City High School.The win moves the Hurons to Friday’s district final where they’ll play Posen, who routed Wolverine in the other semifinal.

Wednesday’s victory came as welcome relief after a difficult week for the Hurons. Former Rogers City coach Gary Bisson resigned earlier this week after an incident involving several varsity basketball players. Those players were suspended, leaving the Hurons with just three varsity players for Wednesday’s game along with most of Rogers City’s JV team.

Regardless of the roster-in this case one composed largely of untested freshmen and sophomores-the Hurons (12-9) made the most of their chances and held off a furious comeback by the Cardinals late in the fourth quarter to earn the victory.

“This win was big. These girls had two practices to get ready to play as a team,” Rogers City coach Sarah LaFleche said. “They did well. They pushed the ball up the floor, they made key shots, they made their lauyps and they played good defense.”

Rogers City led 38-28 after three quarters and pushed its lead to 15 with 5:45 to play. The lead shrunk in the next few minutes however as the Cardinals (9-12) went on a 9-0 run to cut the lead to 45-39 with 3:54 left.

Onaway couldn’t do much to pull any closer after that and four free throws from Rabeau gave the Hurons a 10-point lead again with 3:18 left.

“The fourth quarter effort I thought was really good,” Onaway coach Marty Mix said. “We had some bad moments early. I can’t say we were bad, it’s just that we were flat. We weren’t going after rebounds and we just didn’t quite have it tonight.”

Onaway struggled to find a groove all night and couldn’t keep up with the Hurons in the second half. Shots they normally make refused to fall and Onaway found itself hounded all the way down the court thanks to Rogers City’s press.

Onaway shot just 9-for-27 from the charity stripe as well and was outscored 12-8 in the third quarter.

After Sydney Purgiel hit two shots to open the game, the Hurons were off and running They led 9-7 after one quarter and spread the ball around in the second quarter, scoring on several high percentage shots. They also relied on the experience of Rabeau, who scored from everywhere on the floor and made crucial shots when the Hurons needed them.

“It is a very overwhelming feeling how well these girls did tonight,” LaFleche said. “Just to step up and come in, having never played a varsity game before, they did it. They played well together as a team and worked hard.”

Hannah Fleming added 10 points for the Hurons and Purgiel and Linnea Hentkowski each had eight.

Onaway traded baskets with the Hurons in the second quarter and briefly held the lead, but ultimately trailed 26-20 at halftime. The Cardinals cut the lead to four early in the third quarter, but that was as close as they got.

Jade Galer led Onaway with 15 points and Taylor Ehrke added 11.

ROGERS CITY (53): S. Purgiel 3 1-4 8; B. Daniels 2 0-0 4; C. Hart 1 1-2 3; L. Hentkowski 3 1-4 8; K. Rabeau 7 6-7 22; H. Fleming 4 2-9 10; J. Schalk 1 0-0 2.

ONAWAY (45): T. Ehrke 3 5-13 11; M. McLean 2 2-6 6; J. Galer 6 1-3 15; K. Crawford 2 0-2 4; C. Selke 0 0-1 0; Z. Box 3 1-2 7; E. Winfield 1 0-0 2.

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