News Photo by Jonny Zawacki Alpena’s Jenna Leeck (12) shoots over Ogemaw Heights defender Savannah Wright (5) during the third quarter of a girls basketball game on Tuesday at Alpena High School.

The Alpena High girls basketball team ended last week with a crucial conference victory and the Wildcats (3-4) began a new week with a 48-24 victory over Ogemaw Heights (2-3) on Monday.

Alpena is slowly beginning to put a frustrating start to the season behind them as the Wildcats have now won two straight games and three of their last four. 

“We are trending in the right direction. Playing more has definitely helped us with getting everyone to gel together and know what we’re all looking for,” Alpena head coach Erin Andrews said. 

Defense has been the story in all three of Alpena’s victories this season. The Wildcats have held their opponents to under 30 points in all three wins and Alpena has held its past two opponents under that mark.

Fortunately the defense was up to the task on Monday as the offense was slow early. The Wildcats led just 7-5 after one quarter.

Alpena was just as cold in the second quarter and failed to take control of the game from the charity stripe as the Wildcats went 1-for-8 from the line in the quarter.

Alpena got its offense going in the final minute of the half as it ended the first half strong going on an 8-0 run to take a 17-9 lead at the break.

“We’ve really been working on our defense and a majority of our practice is working our defense,” Andrews said. “It was a slow start for us. Ogemaw sat back in a zone and played slow, we don’t like to play slow, we like to speed things up so we needed to score in order to get into our press. Once we started scoring, we were able to press and we started to take off.”

The Wildcats picked up the intensity in the second half and played suffocating defense. This led to more offense as Alpena broke the game open in the third quarter, outscoring the Falcons 17-6 in the quarter to take a commanding 34-15 lead.

“We talked in the locker room about what to do in their zone. For us, learning how to read defenses is a big thing for us,” Andrews said. “All of the girls played good minutes and we knew coming in that this was going to be a long week so to be able to spread everything out tonight and get everyone playing time is helpful.”

Alpena finished the game strong and got a balanced effort from its entire roster as once again, plenty of Wildcats put in good minutes.

Allie DeRocher led Alpena with 12 points and Allie Urlaub finished with 10 points. Avery Dubey and Ellie Clarke chipped in with seven points apiece in the win.

The Wildcats will look to continue its winning streak today when they host Big North Conference foe, Cadillac at 5:30 p.m.

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BOX SCORE: Field Goals Made/Free Throws Made/Free Throws Attempted/Total Points

ALPENA (48): A. DeRocher, 5 2-4 12; A. Urlaub, 3 2-2 10; L. Morgan, 2 1-2 5; J. Leeck, 1 0-0 2; A. Dubey, 3 0-0 7; A. Trelfa, 2 1-2 5; E. Clarke, 3 0-0 7.

OGEMAW HEIGHTS (24): S. Wright, 2 0-0 4; P. Liddell, 3 5-6 12; M. Morris, 1 1-6 4; L. Hodgins, 2  2-3 5.