Photo by Josh Jambor. Alpena Community College guard Derian Williams goes up for a highly contested lay-up early in the first half of Wednesday’s loss to Kirtland Community College.

ALPENA – The Alpena Community College men’s basketball team lost an evenly matched battle with Kirtland Community College 69-61 on Wednesday night.

The loss drops the Lumberjacks record to 1-17 on the season.

Midway through the first half with ACC trailing by four points, freshman guard Kobe Johnson drained a three pointer to trim the gap to one point.

Moments later, with Kirtland controlling the ball, ACC freshman guard Gary Reed stole a pass from Kirtland’s Troy Jenkins. Reed missed his jump-shot, but Freshman center Oliver Duthler put back the offensive rebound, giving ACC its first lead of the game, 14-13.

Later in the half, with time expiring, ACC sophomore guard Derian Williams knocked down a baseline jumper as the buzzer sounded. Giving ACC a 35-27 lead at the intermission.

Early in the second half Williams found Johnson cutting to the basket, extending the ACC lead to 39-32.

On the ensuing ACC offensive possession Williams drained a three-pointer, bringing the home crowd to their feet and extending the lead for Alpena to 42-32.

Unfortunately, Kirtland then went on a 9-0 run to narrow the gap and trimmed the ACC lead to one-point.

The lead would change hands ten times in the second half of play.

With a little over five minutes left in the game, Williams drove to the basket and scored a highly contested lay-up, making the score 57-56, ACC.

That was the last time Alpena would hold the lead for the remainder of the game. Kirtland went on a 9-2 run in the closing minutes of play and held the Lumberjacks off down the stretch.

ACC Head Coach Bobby Allen said the team battled for a large majority of the game, but just couldn’t get over the hump of pulling off the win.

“I like the way they performed; they did a great job, we just came up short at the end,” Allen said

Despite the loss, this young ACC squad is making progress.

“They have not been in a close game like that most of the year,” Allen said. “We just need to learn how to finish.”