News Photo by James Andersen Rogers City’s Kyrsten Altman, middle, attempts to shoot the ball while being defended by Posen players Elena Kalbitzer (22) and Makayla Kamyszek during the first half of a girls basketball game in Rogers City on Friday.

ROGERS CITY–Great teamwork on both ends of the floor added up to a victory for the Posen girls basketball team on Friday.

Elena Kalbitzer scored 16, Riley Krajniak added 11 and the Vikings coupled balanced scoring with stout defense to topple Rogers City 53-26 at Rogers City High School.

After holding Onaway to 26 points in a win on Wednesday, the Vikings’ defense took care of business again Friday, getting to the ball quickly, clogging up passing lanes and forcing the Hurons to repeatedly turn the ball over. Posen held Rogers City to 13 first-half points and then blanked the Hurons in the third quarter.

“We’ve got a nice team. We came out, we played a real strong second half,” Posen coach Karl Momrik said. “We had a little bit of foul trouble early with a couple kids, but we got our full compliment back in the second half and played great defense and did a good job.”

Makayla Kamyszek added 10 points for the Vikings, who had seven players score in in the victory, including four with eight points. Along with three starters finishing in double figures, Ella Szatkowski added eight points.

“We spread the ball around to a lot of kids,” Momrik said.

Posen kept the pressure on Rogers City from the opening tip, forcing the Hurons to take bad shots or turn the ball over. The Vikings controlled the boards all night and were able to get up and down the floor quicker sometimes than the Hurons could respond.

Posen raced out to a 12-3 lead after one quarter as Rogers City ran into some early foul trouble. The Vikings missed a number of easy shots early in the contest, but also got second and third chances because of strong rebounding and converted a number of those.

“Some of the things that we feared kind of came true here today: we got beat down the floor too many times, we didn’t box out (and) we talked about that,” Rogers City coach Duane Pitts said. “We just don’t have a big team this year and it’s kind of like what I said (before the season) that we have to work for everything we get.”

The Hurons adjusted somewhat to Posen’s defense in the second quarter and pulled as close as six with a few minutes remaining. Nonetheless, Posen held a 23-13 lead at halftime and continued to surge ahead in the second half.

Krajniak drained a triple 10 seconds into the third quarter and Kalbitzer and Elizabeth Romel traded baskets as Posen continued to control the paint. Posen held a 36-13 lead after 24 minutes as Rogers City struggled against Posen’s defensive pressure.

“They crashed the boards hard, they got a lot of rebounds, a lot of stick-backs and you’re not going to win a lot of basketball games when people are shooting two to three footers,” Pitts said. “The effort has to be better and it’s back to the drawing board.”

Kyley LaFleche led Rogers City with nine points and Alayna Taylor had six.

Posen’s JV team defeated Rogers City 37-22. Mariah Newhouse paced Posen with 12 points and Ava Wesner had eight.

Samantha Williams led the Hurons with eight points.

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

POSEN (53): R. Krajniak 4 2-3 11; E. Kalbitzer 7 2-6 16; M. Kamyszek 5 0-2 10; F. Cousins 1 0-0 2; E. Szatkowski 4 0-0 8; A. Schellie 1 0-0 2; E. Romel 2 0-0 4.

ROGERS CITY (56): K. LaFleche 3 2-4 9; E. Budnick 1 0-0 2; K. Rabeau 0 1-2 1; A. Taylor 2 1-2 6; K. Altman 2 0-0 5; A. Idalski 1 0-0 3.

Hillman 38, Mio 32

MIO–Bailey Schook had 18 points and six rebounds to lead the Hillman girls basketball team to its first win of the season; 38-32 over Mio on Friday.

Melanie Morrison added six points and Allyson Brown added eight rebounds for the Tigers (1-1), who earned their first win under new coach Jenny Taratuta.

“It was a win, we still have some work to do,” Taratuta said.