News Photo by James Andersen Alpena's Maddie Voltz, left, prepares to shoot while being defended by Traverse City Central's Sage Hill during the first half of a girls basketball game on Tuesday at Alpena High School.

Margot Woughter proved too tough for the Alpena girls basketball team to stop on Tuesday.

The Traverse City Central point guard torched the Wildcats for 33 points and helped the Trojans to a 62-46 win at Alpena High School.

The Wildcats (6-3, 2-2 Big North) stayed with Central early on, but once Woughter got going in the second half there was no stopping her. She scored eight points in the second quarter and poured in 11 points in the third quarter, beating Alpena seemingly from everywhere on the floor.

“We came out with a lot of energy tonight (and) took it to them early,” Alpena co-coach Steve McCourt said. “We’re a young team, so it took us a little while to make adjustments to what they were doing. That’s a good team. Their length really bothered us. They’re fairly tall and they made jump shots really difficult.”

Alpena struggled against Central’s length, but also had trouble getting shots to fall. Shots that normally fall for Alpena, especially putbacks, didn’t go in this time around. Central was also good at drawing contact and made Alpena pay at the free throw line, going 24-for-31.

“Sometimes they don’t drop, but when ours aren’t dropping we just need to make sure we’re getting the rebounds and they don’t have any second chances,” Alpena co-coach Kelley Miko said. “If they don’t drop, you’re just going to have to work harder on defense.”

Central led 14-10 after one quarter and pulled away before halftime with a 10-2 run to start the second quarter. Baskets proved to be few and far between for the Wildcats as they struggled to slow down Woughter and Central’s forwards in the paint.

Madison Goodwin added 11 points for the Trojans and Mary Drake added seven.

Trailing 51-30 with 5:25 left to play, the Wildcats went on a 9-0 run and cut the deficit to 13. This was Alpena’s best stretches all night as the Wildcats scored on putbacks and shot well from outside.

Central’s free throw shooting kept Alpena from getting any closer and the Trojans closed the gap with a 9-for-12 clip from the charity stripe.

Shelby Seaver led Alpena with 11 points and Jasmyn Schultz added nine. Jessica Marwede and Maddie Voltz each added six.

With Seaver controlling the paint, the Wildcats scored the game’s first six points and Seaver scored seven of Alpena’s first 10 points. Woughter was limited to two points in the first quarter, but found her teammates for open shots, ultimately helping Central pull ahead for good with three minutes left in the period.

Central’s JV team topped Alpena 44-34. Mollie Girard paced Alpena with 11 points and Dani Losinski added six.

——

TRAVERSE CITY CENTRAL (62): M. Woughter 8 16-19 33; M. Goodwin 4 3-4 11; K. Domine 1 0-0 2; S. Hill 1 0-0 2; S. Herbers 2 1-2 5; M. Drake 1 4-4 7; A. Bohn 1 0-2 2.

ALPENA (46): T. Foster 1 1-2 3; K. Jones 2 0-0 5; J. Schultz 2 5-7 9; M. Voltz 3 0-0 6; S. Seaver 4 3-6 11; T. Gentry 1 0-0 2; J. Marwede 2 2-2 6; E. Jore 2 0-1 4;

James Andersen can be reached via email at sports@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5694. Follow James on Twitter @ja_alpenanews.