The Alpena High girls basketball team ended the regular season on a winning note, defeating Traverse City Central 55-44 at home on Friday.

The win gives the Wildcats (11-9, 5-5 Big North) a third place finish in Big North Conference play.

“It feels good to finish off the regular season with a conference win and with this win we finished third,” Alpena coach Erin Andrews said. “Now we have to go back at it, in the first round of the districts here against Marquette, on Monday.”

Alpena hosts Marquette in a Division 1 district quarterfinal at 6 p.m. on Monday.

The Wildcats set the tone early on consecutive buckets from Jade Schultz, Maddie Voltz and Abbie Funk, before Allie Funk nailed a long distance three-pointer, forcing the Trojans to call timeout with a shade over four minutes left in the first quarter.

Alpena’s defense played a big factor in the win and limited the Trojans to a single basket from Carina Stewart in the 15-4 run over the first eight minutes.

Central continued to have a cold shooting night, only converting on four shots in the second quarter as Alpena’s continued to mount. Alpena went 10-of-14 from the free throw line during the first half and led 35-21 at halftime.

Despite only getting baskets from Schultz, Taylor Tolsdorf and Voltz, the Wildcats still led 43-30 after three quarters. The Trojans made a small dent in Alpena’s lead, going 7-for-10 at the charity stripe, with their lone basket being a layup by Madison Goodwin.

The biggest lead of the night came with 4:44 remaining on a putback by Schultz, who finished with 14 points on the night.

The Trojans finally got on track late and cut the lead to 51-42 on a short range jumper from Stewart, but that was as close as Central got.

“I thought our free shooting was extremely good (compared to Thursday),” Andrews said. “Our guards were able to knock them down when we needed them, as Allie and Abbie converted on 14 of 17.”

Voltz took scoring honors with 15 points, in addition to 10 coming from Abbie Funk.

Alpena’s JV team lost 38-33. Jenna Leeck finished in double figures with 11 for Alpena, while Allison Urlaub and Elyse Clarke added eight and seven respectively.

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BOX SCORE: Field goals made/Free throws made/Free throws attempted/Total Points

ALPENA (55): M. Dickinson 0 1-2 1, J. Schultz 6 2-2 14, M. Voltz 6 3-8 15, T. Tolsdorf 2 1-4 5, Ab. Funk 1 8-10 10, Al. Funk 1 6-7 9, A. Young 1-2 1.

TRAVERSE CITY CENTRAL (44): C. Stewart 3 7-8 – 13, R. Farmer 1 2-3 – 4, T. Kenney 1-2-1, S. Zann 1-4- 1, M. Goodwin 4 6-9 – 14, S. Hill 1 1-2 – 3, O. Richards 1 0-0 – 2, R. Boynton 2 0-1 -4, A. Finch 1 0-0 – 2.