News Photo by Owen Kinzey Alpena Community College’s Davarion Mitchell (21) scores on a layup during the first half of a men’s basketball game against Bay College on Wednesday at Park Arena.

ALPENA — Going into Wednesday’s game, the Alpena Community College men’s basketball team knew it had a tough challenge ahead of it.

The Lumberjacks took on Bay College and suffered a brutal loss with a final score of 86-50. ACC’s defense struggled all night to contain the Norse’s scoring and couldn’t keep up on offense.

“We need to do some work in practice. The things that we do in practice never seem to translate to how we perform on the court,” ACC coach Bobby Allen said.

Alpena got off to a surprisingly good start and maintained a 4-0 lead for the first four minutes of the game.

Bay College couldn’t find its rhythm early on and had difficulties finding an open shot.

Nick Freel had a spectacular first quarter between rebounding and defense. Freel recorded back-to-back blocks with around 15 minutes to go in the first half.

Eventually, the Norse found themselves and began to score every time they got the ball on offense.

Once Bay’s offense started the flow, the defense came along with it and ACC found itself in a deficit very quickly.

The Norse spread the ball around to all of its players during the first half. Ten different players scored for Bay, but none of them finished with double-digit points in the half.

Alpena ended up forcing several contested shots and took on the struggles Bay had early on.

Going into the half, Alpena’s leading scorer was Davarion Mitchell who had 12 out of ACC’s 27 points.

Bay College had a very comfortable 45-27 lead going into the break, and the Norse were not going to slow down.

After being outscored by 18 points in the first half, the Lumberjacks needed to be perfect on both ends of the floor for any kind of comeback. It became apparent quickly that Bay was going to run away with a win.

Alpena’s defense proved it could still not stop the Norse’s offense again in the second half. Bay continued to score with ease on ACC, as it scored another 41 points during the half.

In the end, Bay College came out with an enormous 86-50 win over the Lumberjacks.

“Everybody needs to know what job they have to do on defense and none of our players did tonight,” Allen said.

ACC’s leading scorers on the night were Mitchell with 16 points and James Williams with 15.

Genesis Kemp led the way for the Norse, scoring 15 points in the win. Jaylen Flaniken and Michael Foust were the second leading scorers, each scoring 14 points.

ACC plays Mid Michigan on Saturday.