SAULT STE. MARIE — Playing its second game in as many nights, the Alpena boys basketball team took care of business.

The Wildcats traveled to Sault Ste. Marie for their first road game of the year and came away with a lopsided victory, defeating the Blue Devils 62-20 on Wednesday.

“It was similar to yesterday. We played good defense and did what we needed to do,” Alpena coach John Pintar said. “Defense has been our focus and we know we have to be good at that if we want to compete and so far, so good through two games. We know our offense is good enough, we just have to keep it up defensively because that’s going to be the difference between us being a good team and a great team.”

Alpena jumped out to an 18-2 first quarter lead and continued to build on it throughout the night and was able to coast to another convincing win.

Chris DeRocher led the Wildcats with a team high 18 points and Aidan Goike added 11 points.

Alpena improves to 2-0 and will be back in action next Friday when they host Tawas.

The Alpena JV and freshman teams also came away with victories.

The Wildcat JV squad defeated Sault 52-31 and were led by Jordan Schultz who scored 18 points. Cooper Bright and Tyler Dickinson each added 13 points apiece in the win.

The Alpena freshman team won by a score of 59-39.

Michael Gumtow led the way with 20 points and Noah Marquardt chipped in with 13 points.

Rogers City 43,

Gaylord St. Mary 31

GAYLORD — The Rogers City boys basketball team opened its season with a road win against Gaylord St. Mary on Wednesday, defeating the Snowbirds by a final score of 43-31.

“It was a low scoring game and tough defense was played by both sides,” Rogers City coach Matt Ponik said. “I though we played well overall. Our shots weren’t falling, but we just kept plugging along.”

What shots did fall came from the hot hand of Ethan Hincka who poured in a game high 21 points to lead the Hurons to victory in the season opener. J.D. Ellenberger added six points and Nick Freel chipped in with five points.

Gaylord St. Mary got all of its scoring from three players and led after one quarter, but the Hurons picked it up offensively, scoring 17 second quarter points to take a lead six point halftime lead and held on in the end as both teams combined for just eight points in the final quarter.