News Photo by Jonny Zawacki Alpena’s Dylan Ross (23) gets a shot blocked by Schoolcraft defender DeYuan Heard during a men’s basketball game on Wednesday at Park Arena.

The Alpena Community College men’s basketball team is still in search of its first win this season and the Schoolcraft Ocelots made sure that ACC’s first win didn’t come against them as they came into Park Arena and put a whooping on the Lumberjacks, winning by a final score of 105-54.

Schoolcraft (15-5) wasted no time filling up the basket as it raced out to an early 15-5 lead that was capped off by a vicious dunk by sophomore Kevin Hayes which led to Alpena head coach Frank McCourt spending an early timeout in hopes of figuring out how to slow the opponents down.

The Ocelots were in no mood to slow down as they kept up the pressure at both ends early and often as they forced the Lumberjacks to commit several costly turnovers that led to many easy baskets.

After opening up a 24-9 lead shortly after the timeout, Alpena hit its next two baskets to cut the lead back to 10 points, but that was as close as it would get the rest of the night as it went ice cold for over a seven minute stretch.

During that span, Schoolcraft blew the lead wide open as it went on an 18-0 to take a commanding 28 point lead with just under four minutes to play in the first half.

The Lumberjacks were able to break out their scoring funk in the final three minutes, but just could not keep pace with the talented and athletic Ocelots who took a 55-24 lead into the break.

The second half didn’t start out much better for Alpena as it continued turning the ball over and had no answer for Schoolcraft who found a way to score in every way possible throughout the course of night.

Schoolcraft’s Armani Tinsley caught fire in the opening minutes in the half as he connected on three consecutive shots from beyond the long line to extend the Ocelots lead to 38.

It didn’t matter who entered the game for each team, Schoolcraft proved why it is one of the top teams in the conference as it extended the lead even further throughout the second half as it used a 17-4 run midway through the half to open up 95-42 lead as the Ocelots led by as many as 59 points in the game before Alpena scored the final eight points in the contest.

Despite a difficult night at both ends of the floor to the Lumberjacks, the one bright spot was sophomore Trenton LaVergne who did all he could the entire night as he scored a team high 23 points.

Greg Burton added eight points and Donovan Middleton chipped in with seven points for Alpena in the losing effort.

Schoolcraft was led by Hayes who poured in a game high 26 points on the night. Charles Penn collected 22 points, Walt Kelser added 11 points and DeYuan Heard chipped in with 10 points.

Alpena falls to 0-12 overall on the year and 0-9 in conference play. The Lumberjacks will be back in action on Saturday as they look to earn their first win at home against Delta.

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SCHOOLCRAFT (105) — D. Hansbro, 2 0-0 6; A. Tinsley, 3 0-0 9; C. Penn, 8 5-5 22; W. Kelser, 5 0-0 11; K. Hayes, 12 2-4 26; R. Talley, 2 1-1 5, E. Abdujami, 1 0-4 2; D. Heard, 5 0-0 10; D. Williams, 2 2-4 6; J. Andoni, 3 0-0 8.

ALPENA (54) — K. Adams, 1 0-0 3; T. LaVergne, 10 3-3 23; T. Hopkins, 0 1-2 1; G. Burton, 3 0-1 8; M. Stuart, 2 0-0 5; D. Ross, 1 0-0 2; H. Maran, 1 0-0 3; D. Middleton, 3 1-2 7; P. Gomes, 1 0-0 2.

Jonny Zawacki can be reached via email at jzawacki@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5690.