News Photo by Owen Kinzey Alpena Community College’s Allie Urlaub, right, prepares to take a shot during the opening minutes of a women’s basketball game on Saturday against MidMichigan at Park Arena.

ALPENA — The Alpena Community College women’s basketball team faced an exceptional Mid-Michigan team on Saturday.

The Lakers were nearly unstoppable from the three-point line and outstanding on defense.

This resulted in the Lumberjacks taking a 84-41 loss to Mid-Michigan.

“They’re an amazing team, they’re super deep, and they’re making shots the entire game. We struggled on the offensive side early and you really can’t do that to a team that shoots and scores as good as they do,” ACC coach Cindy DeRocher said.

The game began with the Lakers taking an early lead along with the momentum.

During the first quarter, Bailey Vissman and Brooke Brauher were outstanding. Both girls combined for 10 points and knocked away five steals from the Lumberjacks.

Mid Michigan’s defense made its presence known right away and held ACC to just six points in the first quarter.

Going into the second quarter, the deficit was only 13 points, but the Lakers’ offensive scoring had just begun.

In the second, Mid Michigan scored a total of 30 points, which was the most points scored in a quarter throughout the entire game. Satori Griffin led the quarter in scoring and was a key player in the number of turnovers forced on defense.

Problems with getting a stop on defense as well as turning over the ball on offense seemed to be the main challenges for ACC.

By the end of the second quarter and going into the half, the Lumberjacks were down 49-17 with almost no chance of making the comeback.

“After that first half, we really tried to focus in on the stuff we can do well in other games. We knew we were better than that, so we pushed ourselves until the end,” DeRocher said. “Overall, it’s a really good experience to play a team as good as them because it shows us what we need to do better,”

Even though the Lumberjacks were down 32 points coming out of the break, ACC upped its intensity on defense by running the press.

Allie DeRocher accumulated three steals during the quarter due to the aggressive style of defense. This helped Alpena to get some defensive stops and only be outscored by three points during the third quarter.

Going into the final period, ACC was down 67-32 and all Mid Michigan had to do was run the clock out.

“We came out a little nervous and a little shaky and (Mid-Michigan) took advantage of that. Our press gave them some problems in the second half, but we can’t press for all 40 minutes,” DeRocher said.

Jade Schultz and Allie DeRocher were the leading scorers for the Lumberjacks. Schultz finished with 12 points and DeRocher had 11.

Terre’ya Moore and Griffin were the top scorers for the Lakers. Both girls finished with 14 points each.

ACC plays North Central Michigan on Wednesday.