News Photo by Jonny Zawacki Alpena’s Trenton Jantzi (2) prepares to go up for a shot while being defended by Henry Ford’s Tyler Gillery during the second half of a men’s basketball game on Saturday at Park Arena.

The Alpena Community College men’s basketball team was unable to overcome a slow start on Saturday and fell at home to Henry Ford Community College 82-52.

The Lumberjacks fell behind 11-0 in the first three minutes of the game and couldn’t recover.

“The way we started kind of surprised me. We just couldn’t hit some easy baskets to start which was frustrating. I’m disappointed, but I told my guys that we don’t get to the top of the mountain on one climb and we’re going to take some steps back every once in a while, but as long as we continue to move forward I don’t mind an occasional hiccup and we just didn’t have a good game tonight,” ACC coach Mark Jacobs said. “Henry Ford is tough and athletic and we knew we had to bring our A game and we didn’t bring it tonight.”

The Hawks were hot from the field early and went on to make 11 of 37 three point attempts in the game.

After taking the 11-0 lead in the first few minutes of the first half, the Hawks continued to build on their lead and took a 46-22 lead into the break.

“I told my guys I was just disappointed for them because I know that they’re better than that, but the early start really hurt us. If we don’t play even early, we just get out of sync and that’s what happened tonight,” Jacobs said.

Alpena did put together a much better effort in the second half and shot the ball better from the field, but the deficit was too much and the Lumberjacks just couldn’t climb out of the big hole that they dug themselves in the first half.

“I think we moved the ball around a lot better in the second half. I knew that the guys would come around, but Henry Ford moved the ball around very well and they have some shooters and they hurt us tonight,” Jacobs said. “We can always say we expect to win, because I wouldn’t be coaching if I didn’t expect to win, but I think these guys are starting to believe in each other and they’re trusting each other. It takes a while to earn that trust. The first five minutes really hurt us tonight and they made a lot of threes and that was demoralizing to us. We’re not out of it and we know we have a tough stretch coming up, but we’ll be alright.”

The Lumberjacks were led by Tim Hopkins and Logan Guenther who each added 14 points apiece in the loss. Trenton Jantzi finished with nine points and Oliver Rice chipped in with eight points.

Leon Ayers led all scorers with a game high 18 points to lead Henry Ford to victory. Luster Johnson collected 12 points and Andre Johnson added 10 points.

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BOX SCORE: Field goals made/Free-throws made/Free-throws attempted/Total points

HENRY FORD (82): T. Gillery, 1 0-0 3; L. Ayers, 7 0-0 18; A. Crawford, 3 0-1 7; R. Pope, 1 0-0 3; C. Jackson, 3 1-2 7; D. Moore, 1 1-3 3; L. Gulledge, 3 1-2 7; A. Johnson, 4 0-0 10; L. Johnson, 5 2-3 12; E. Bailey, 1 0-1 2; Y. Farhat, 3 0-0 8; K. Graham, 1 0-0 2.

ALPENA (52): T. Jantzi, 4 1-5 9; L. Guenther, 7 0-0 14; O. Rice, 3 0-0 8; T. Hopkins, 5 1-2 14; I. Hogsett, 1 0-0 2; T. Smith, 2 1-2 5.