News Photo by Jonny Zawacki Alpena’s Lillian Black (10) looks for an open defender while being guarded by Mott’s Arie Lewis (15) during the third quarter of a women’s basketball game on Tuesday at Park Arena.

The Alpena Community College women’s basketball entered Tuesday’s home opener coming off of a season opening loss in which turnovers were a major issue.

Alpena was unable to clean up those mistakes and it cost the Lumberjacks dearly in a 70-37 blowout loss to Mott Community College at Park Arena.

The Lumberjacks (0-2) knocked down a pair of threes in the opening minutes of the contest and kept pace throughout the first quarter, but Alpena went ice cold and ran into problems during the second quarter.

Bad turnovers led to easy points for the Bears (2-0) as they closed the first half on an 11-2 run after Alpena went scoreless for nearly five minutes late in the half. 

Alpena had no answer for Mott’s duo of Xeriya Tartt and Arie Lewis as they both found ways to score inside and out, combining for 21 first half points and nearly out scoring Alpena in the first half by themselves

tThe Lumberjacks trailed 39-23 at the break.

Alpena came out of the locker room and played inspired in the opening minutes of the second half. It nearly cut the deficit back to single digits as it held the Bears scoreless in the first three and a half minutes of the third quarter, but Mott eventually found its rhythm.

The Bears closed the quarter strong, scoring 14 of the final 15 points, holding Alpena to just one point in the final five minutes.

Mott took a commanding 56-30 lead into the fourth and put the game away.

Mott held the Lumberjacks to just seven points in the fourth quarter and cruised to a 33 point victory.

The Bears were paced by Tartt who scored a game high 19 points.

Jade Schultz led the Lumberjacks with 13 points, including all seven of Alpena’s third quarter points.