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Going home early

Wildcats fall in district opener to Gaylord

News Photo by Jonny Zawacki Alpena's Emma Jore (24) tries to dribble past a pair of Gaylord defenders during the third quarter of a girls district quarterfinal basketball game on Monday at Gaylord High School.

GAYLORD–It can be difficult to defeat a rival three times in the same season.

Unfortunately for the Alpena girls basketball team, it had to learn that the hard way on Monday as the Wildcats lost their district opener for the fourth consecutive year after they fell to Gaylord by a final score of 58-51.

Despite a frustrating defeat, Alpena fought the entire game. The Wildcats (12-7) trailed much of the night, but in the end just couldn’t get enough big shots to fall.

The Wildcats trailed Gaylord 49-35 with just over six minutes left and instead of getting down, Alpena fired up and stormed back to cut the lead to 51-48 with 3:21 to play.

“These girls fought for the whole thing. We just didn’t get our shots to fall and we tried to work the ball inside and I thought we were getting hammered underneath and not getting many calls,” Alpena coach Erin Andrews said. “We kept getting multiple shots down low and the girls just kept working and working. Credit to Gaylord they were throwing up shots that we didn’t see them make all year and sometimes during this time of the year, that happens.”

The three point deficit was as close as the Wildcats could get as Gaylord closed the game out by making free throws which was the story of the night.

The Blue Devils capitalized by playing on its home court and cashing in at the free throw line. Gaylord shot an impressive 19-for-24 from the charity stripe and in the first half went to the line 13 times to Alpena’s three.

“We’ve been making free throws all year except for today so every good streak comes to an end I guess, it was just unfortunate it happened tonight,” Andrews said. “Our girls just kept going at it and I can’t ask for much more than that and I told them eventually they would get the calls and things just didn’t go our way.”

Every time it looked like Gaylord was going to pull away, the Wildcats were right there to answer and make it a game that was exciting from start to finish. 

The Blue Devils took an 11-point lead early in the second quarter, but Alpena responded and cut the lead to six at the half, but the Wildcats struggled to slow down Savanna Gapinski who went off for a game high 22 points and was a perfect 6-for-6 at the free throw line.

Along with Gapinski, Rebecca Ross chipped in with 14 points on the night, eight of which came in the final eight minutes, including a buzzer-beating layup to end the third quarter.

The Wildcats were paced by Shelby Seaver who ended her career with a team high 16 points. Jade Schultz finished with 10 points and Maddie Voltz and Emma Jore each added six points apiece.

“We had a great season and I really believe that people are put in your life for a reason and there’s a reason that those five seniors were put in my life,” Andrews said. “We have some great talent returning and I’m looking for some good things from the girls we have returning and I think we will be tough to stop next year.”

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GAYLORD (58): M. Wilkie 1 1-4 3; R. Freeman 2 4-4 9; R. Ross 4 6-8 14; K. Dandeneau 1 2-2 4; E. Heinz 3 0-0 6; S. Gapinski 7 6-6 22.

ALPENA (51): T. Foster 1 0-0 3; M. Girard 1 0-0 2; K. Jones 0 1-2 1; J. Schultz 3 4-6 10; M. Voltz 3 0-0 6; S. Seaver 7 2-4 16; E. Jore 3 0-5 6; D. Prevo 2 1-1 5.

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