News Photo by Jonny Zawacki Rogers City’s Taylor Fleming goes up for a layup while being defended by Oscoda’s Katelyn Etherton (2) during the fourth quarter of a girls basketball game on Thursday night at Rogers City High School.

ROGERS CITY — After losing three games in a row just over two weeks ago, the Rogers City girls basketball team is back on track and winners of its last three games as they took advantage of a shorthanded and young Oscoda team on Thursday, defeating the Owls 68-47.

“We learned a lot playing top ranked teams during that three game losing streak and it would have been easy for our girls to just pack it in after that, but we’ve dug down deep and have found a way to bounce back from it nicely,” Rogers City coach Duane Pitts said. “We shared the ball well tonight, at times we got sloppy, but overall I thought we played really well tonight.”

The Hurons wasted no time putting points on the board as Kayla Rabeau hit a quick three after the opening tip and Taylor Fleming scored on a layup as Rogers City connected on its first two shot attempts.

With only six players dressed, four of which were underclassmen, Oscoda refused to just lay down and put up a fight in the opening quarter as it found ways to keep the game close early. The Owls were able to cut the lead to one on two separate occasions in the first, but turnovers hurt Oscoda throughout the course of the game as it committed way too many traveling violations during the game.

“We were down a few players tonight and this was our third game this week, having just six players hurt us and we made too many mistakes,” Oscoda coach Mark Toppi said. “The girls played hard and they never gave up. We missed too many easy shots throughout the game, but just being so shorthanded against a good Rogers City team never helps.”

The Hurons held a six point lead after the first quarter, but the Owls continued to chip away at the lead, but just could not tie or take the lead at any point and Rogers City took control late in the half as they scored the final 10 points of the second quarter to take a 35-19 lead into the break.

“We wanted to press them and we did that, but I thought we got a little impatient ourselves. We were able to slow it down late in the first half and that carried on into the second half and I thought we looked pretty good most of the night,” Pitts said.

The late run at the end of the half proved to be the turning point in the game as Rogers City continued to wear down the Owls throughout the second half, finding ways to score and not allowing Oscoda to get back to within striking distance.

The final two quarters featured back and forth action, but again the turnovers and mistakes cost Oscoda late and the Owls just didn’t have enough in the tank to make any sort of comeback against on of the top teams in the North Star League.

“We made a lot of mistakes at the end, we had multiple people guarding the same person and that’s something we need to work on, but when you’re starting three freshman and a sophomore we’re going to make a lot of mistakes, but as long as they don’t give up and keep playing hard, that’s the first step for us right now,” Toppi said.

One of the major bright spots for the Owls was the play of freshman Lauren Langley who poured in a game high 18 points on the night. Sophomore Katelyn Etherton added 13 points and junior Briannah Conly chipped in with 11 points.

Oscoda falls to 5-9 overall and 5-6 in NSL play. The Owls will be back in action on Monday when they travel to Whittemore-Prescott.

Rogers City was led by Rabeau who had 17 points. Fleming and Brooke Daniels each added 12 points. Fleming was again a force all game long scoring all of her points in the paint and cleaning the glass, preventing Oscoda from getting many second chances.

Jayna Hance scored nine points and Camyrn Bullock chipped in with eight points in win.

The Hurons improve to 11-3 overall and 9-1 in league play. Rogers City will look to win its fourth straight on Monday when they travel to Alcona.

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ROGERS CITY (68) — C. Bullock, 2 4-4 8; K. Rabeau, 7 1-2 17; B. Daniels, 5 2-4 12; H. Fleming, 1 0-0 2; J. Schalk, 1 0-0 2; T. Fleming, 6 0-0 12; J. Hance, 3 2-4 9; S. Purgiel, 2 0-1 5; D. Smillie, 0 1-2 1.

OSCODA (47) — L. Collins, 0 1-4 1; B. Conly, 3 5-6 11; K. Etherton, 5 2-8 13; K. Holmes, 2 0-0 4; L. Langley, 8 2-4 18.

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