News Photo by Jonny Zawacki Alpena’s Maddie Voltz (12) goes up for a shot between Blue Devil defenders Kayla Wilhelms (15) and Deana LaLonde (22) during the third quarter of a girls basketball game on Wednesday at Alpena High School.

For the second time in a week, Alpena high school was host to a double overtime thriller. This time it was the Alpena girls basketball team, but unfortunately the Wildcats ran out of gas late and suffered a tough defeat, losing to Sault Ste. Marie by a final score of 59-50 on Wednesday night.

“I thought we did a nice job of slowing the game down, because we knew they had some quick guards. We learned a lot from tonight,” Alpena coach Steve McCourt said. “It’s tough to lose a double overtime game at home, but we’re a young team and we’re going to grow from this.”

The two teams battled all night and played as close of a game as anyone will see. The game featured nine different lead changes and the Wildcats and Blue Devils were tied on six different occasions throughout the contest.

Alpena opened up a 10-4 lead in the early stages of the first quarter which was the largest lead of regulation. The Blue Devils responded and had an answer each time the Wildcats grabbed a lead throughout the game.

After leading by just one at the end of the first quarter, Alpena found itself trailing by three at the half.

The Wildcats came out of the break and Kourtney Jones nailed a three pointer to tie the game up at 27. Both teams exchanged points and leads throughout the third quarter, but Sault held a 34-33 lead heading into the fourth quarter.

The Blue Devils held a 40-39 lead with four minutes left in the game, but Alpena got two big buckets late from Jones and Jessica Marwede to put the home team up 43-40 with 1:15 left to play.

Sault sophomore Ashtyn Bell scored connected on a jump shot to cut the lead back to one. The Wildcats turned the ball over on its next possession, but Emma Jore came up with a big steal that led to a wide open layup to give Alpena a 45-42 lead with 34 seconds left to play.

The Blue Devils held for the last shot and got it into the hands of the sharpshooting Mackenzie Kalchik who nailed a clutch three pointer to tie the game up with just 5.8 seconds remaining in regulation.

Alpena called a timeout to set up a play and they got the ball into the hands of Jore who missed a shot at the buzzer, sending the game to overtime.

Alpena came out firing early scoring the first three points in the overtime period. The Blue Devils responded with three unanswered point of their own to tie the game back up with 1:23 left in the first overtime.

The Wildcats went ahead by two when Jasmyn Schultz split a pair of free throws on back-to back trips to the charity stripe.

Sault again responded as Ava Andary got a shot to fall with 23 seconds left.

The Wildcats missed a shot on their next possession, but Marwede came up with a big rebound and Alpena used a timeout with just eight seconds left.

The Wildcats turned the ball over on the inbound and Sault used a timeout of their own, but were unable to get the potential game winning shot to fall which sent the game into a second overtime.

Alpena ran out of gas in the final overtime period as the Blue Devils took advantage of five Wildcat turnovers in the second overtime and Sault scored the only nine points in the second overtime, five of which came from Kalchik who took over late as the Blue Bevils dealt Alpena its first loss of the season.

“We ran out of gas and I should have had some more fresh bodies ready. I really think we had given it everything we had throughout the course of the game,” McCourt said.

Alpena was led by Marwede and Shelby Seaver who both scored 10 points apiece. Jore added eight points and Seaver chipped in with seven points.

Kalchik led all scorers pouring in a game high 22 points to lead the Blue Devils to victory. Bell collected 12 points, Andary had 11 points and Valeta Gage added eight points.

The Wildcats currently hold a 3-1 overall record and will have some time off before returning to the court shortly after the calendar turns to 2017.

“I think the break will be good for us. We will have some time to get healthier and work on some adjustments we need to make. We were really fortunate to have a game like this before we get into Big North Conference play, because our ultimate goal is to continue getting better come tournament time,” McCourt said.

The Alpena JV team also fell short on Wednesday, losing to Sault by a score of 43-29. The Wildcats were led by Melanie Wahoski who had 13 points in the losing effort.

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SAULT STE. MARIE (59) — M. Kalchik, 7 6-9 22; A. Andary, 3 5-8 11; V. Nagy, 0 0-1 0; K. Wilhelms, 0 0-2 0; D. LaLonde, 1 0-0 2; A. Bell, 4 3-4 12; M. Scott, 2 0-2 4; V. Gage, 2 4-6 8.

ALPENA (50) — K. Jones, 2 0-0 5; J. Schultz, 2 3-7 7; M. Voltz, 1 2-4 4; S. Seaver, 3 4-4 10; T. Gentry, 1 0-0 2; J. Marwede, 5 0-3 10; E. Jore, 2 4-4 8; D. Prevo, 2 0-0 4.