News Photo by Owen Kinzey Alpena Community College’s James Williams (3) dribbles toward the net with a Kirtland defender in pursuit during a men’s basketball game on Wednesday at Park Arena.

ALPENA — The Alpena Community College men’s basketball team took another loss on Wednesday, 83-59.

The Lumberjacks took on a very strong Kirtland team full of talent everywhere.

The Firebirds took full advantage of ACC’s height disadvantage along with its weak defense.

“Our defense is a second to two seconds too slow,” ACC coach Bobby Allen said. “Our defense needs to be way better, and we need to learn how to share the ball on offense.”

The Lumberjacks got off to a tough start and never could fully come back. Kirtland knocked down a three-pointer and a couple of easy layups to take a lead early.

Gregory Wilson dominated during the first half, scoring double digit points while also recording both a block and a steal.

All of Kirtland’s starters had points in the first half and could consistently get to the basket whenever they wanted to.

Towards the end of the half, the Lumberjacks found themselves back in the game. ACC did so by stealing the ball four straight times from Kirtland players.

Going into the break, ACC was only down 10 points, 41-31.

With a comeback still possible, the Lumberjacks would need to come out of the locker room with some momentum shifting shots.

The Firebirds soon shut the comeback down and continued to score at will.

Even though Alpena’s defense was great towards the end of the first half, Kirtland began to protect the ball much better and limit turnovers.

Throughout the rest of the half, the Lumberjacks seemed to move away from playing team basketball. That hindered the potential comeback and resulted in the score getting out of hand.

“We need to be better and we should be better,” Allen said. “We work on this stuff all the time in practice and, as soon as we get in a game, we throw it all away. If we passed the ball like we did in the first half, we would’ve had a chance to win.”

Leading Alpena in scoring on Wednesday was Davarion Mitchell with 15 points and James Williams had 13.

Kirtland’s leading scorers were Wilson with 12, while Jaylen Coates and Alex Gray both had 10 points each.

Alpena Community College plays Grand Rapids on Saturday.