News Photo by James Andersen Posen’s Brooke Ciarkowski (33) runs by Alcona’s Megan Grove on the way to the basket during a girls basketball game in Posen on Monday.

POSEN–Taylor Livingston caught fire at the right time on Monday.

The Alcona junior scored 18 of her game-high 24 points in the second half and the Alcona girls basketball team defeated Posen 47-40 at Posen High School.

The Tigers (8-7) used their inside duo of Livingston and Brittany Decker to pull away from the Vikings after a nip-and-tuck first half. Alcona led by 10 late in the third quarter, but got all they could handle from the Vikings (4-9) until the last two minutes of the game.

“About the beginning of the second quarter we picked up our defense and started stopping their progress. Posen’s offense is a lot of off-the-ball cutters and you really have to be disciplined on defense,” Alcona coach Mark Feldhiser said. “We try tried to stay back on that and play some ball-pressure defense and I think that was the difference really.”

Livingston and Decker had their way with Posen defenders inside and combined for 35 points in the win, including 28 in the second half. Posen did what it could to keep up and only trailed by three with four minutes left. But two of the Vikings’ best players, Brooke Ciarkowski and Cami LaTulip fouled out late and Posen just ran out of steam.

“When you lose your top two players to fouls it makes it tough and we had to play without them. Alcona got the ball down low on us and that hurt us bad, we just didn’t recover defensively,” Posen coach Karl Momrik said. “The girls played as hard as they could and that’s all I can ask.”

Alcona trailed 17-15 at halftime and controlled play for a long stretch in the third quarter, putting together a 12-0 run. Alcona cranked up its efforts on defense and got some important buckets from Livingston, Decker, Kendra LaFave and Rachel Warner to take a 29-19 lead with 2:35 left in the quarter.

LaFave added eight points for Alcona, including a three-pointer that knotted the game at 10 early in the second quarter.

Posen cut the lead to six before the end of the period, but a late shot by Livingston gave Alcona a 33-25 lead after three quarters. The Vikings took advantage of free throw chances to cut the lead to 35-31 with 5:38 and to 35-31 left after a pair of free throws from Brianna Kuffel.

Posen went 7-for-12 from the line in the fourth quarter.

The final four minutes of the game belonged to Alcona as Livingston and Decker combined for Alcona’s last nine points.

“We were pretty much able to get what we wanted inside from our bigs,” Feldhiser said. “Taylor and Brittany both played a great game.”

A defensive battle in the first half turned into a test of wills from the charity stripe as both teams combined for 19 free throws. Posen led 7-2 early in the first quarter, but was left clinging to an 8-7 lead after eight minutes.

Posen led 17-15 at halftime after going 9-for-10 from the line.

Ciarkowski led Posen with 11 points and LaTulip added nine.

Alcona’s victory spoiled Posen’s chances for a Senior Night victory. Before the game, Posen honored senior forward Sam Lenard, who has missed most of the season with an ACL tear. Lenard was inserted into the starting lineup and was honored before the game by assistant coach Karl Grambau and LaTulip and Riley Krajniak.

Lenard left the game to applause after the opening jump ball. She finishes her Posen career with 444 rebounds, 257 steals and was part of Posen’s regional championship team in 2014.

“With her not being there, that was a big devastating for our team. She’s our leader, and a great defensive player and great rebounder,” Momrik said. “It was nice to see that she had a chance to get into the game and we had a celebration for her. That was special.”

Alcona’s JV team topped Posen 38-22. Hailee Gordy led Alcona with 12 points and Megan Rasmussen led Posen with 11 points. Hannah Stone added eight for the Vikings.

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ALCONA (47): T. Livingston 7 10-13 24; K. LaFave 2 3-4 8; K. Elmer 1 0-0 2; B. Decker 3 5-7 11; R. Warner 1 0-0 2; M. Grove 0 0-1 0.

POSEN (40): B. Ciarkowski 1 9-10 11; C. LaTulip 4 1-2 9; Faith E. Romel 2 0-0 4; M. Menzel 0 2-2 2; Faith A. Romel 1 0-0 2; B. Kuffel 2 4-8 8; A. Eagling 0 2-2 2; R. Krajniak 1 0-0 2.