Story and photos by Mike Gesler Grant 38 Big Rapids 49 The Grant Tigers and Big Rapids Cardinals entered into tonight’s contest with a chance to take second place alone in the CSAA Gold Conference. Both teams are tied at an 8-4 conference record, but Big Rapids currently has the better of the overall records. A Tiger win tonight would almost guarantee a second place finish, although Grant would still need to beat Central Montcalm on Friday night. The last time these two teams met up in Big Rapids, the Tigers struggled with finding the net, but managed to pull out a six point victory. Now it was the Cardinals' turn to try to steal one from the Tigers’ home court, and show why they should own second in the conference. It did not start out well for the Tigers. “That first quarter just killed us,” stated Coach Delamater. “I mean we worked against their press, but you can’t replicate with our team their size. Their length is just something we don’t have top down, and so when we go into practice and we try to replicate that, that's just extremely hard for us; and that frustrated us right at the beginning.” That full court press helped the Cardinals jump out on an eight point run before Julie Ashbaugh found the net for two and got things started for Grant. Nonetheless, that press and the turnovers created by it still confounded the Tigers through the quarter. By the time the first quarter closed, the Cardinals had pecked away a seven point margin on the Tigers. The second quarter was almost identical to the first as once again Big Rapids racked up an eight point run before Sara Arends found two. The difference this time was that Grant was finally starting to find their game and adjust to Big Rapids’ press. For the remainder of the quarter, even with Ashbaugh out in early foul trouble, the Tigers held the Cardinals to just four points. “Once we kind of got into the rhythm, got them out of that, I thought we played them pretty even for the rest of the game, but you can’t overcome that stretch right there. We battled hard. I was impressed how they played after that,” shared Delamater. The Cardinals had pecked out an eleven point advantage to start the second half. That is basically where it remained for the rest of the game. When Grant could control the tempo and rhythm of play, they would slowly eat away at Big Rapids’ lead. However, Big Rapids would simply take advantage of their size, slow the game down, and swing the lead margin back to where it was before. In the end, Big Rapids walked off the court in sole possession of second in the conference. “I asked them in the locker room if the seniors felt like they left it all on the floor tonight, and they said they for sure did,” expressed Delamater. “One of the things that they said, we were talking about the season in general, they said pretty good season for a bunch of five eight and under girls.”
Yes. Yes it was. Despite her early foul trouble, Julie Ashbaugh led the Tigers efforts tonight with ten points followed closely by Chloee Chase with nine. Jocee Pleune put up seven, and Jaycee Rider helped with five. Sara Arends contributed four, Jocelyn Kruitoff two, and Jayci Hance had one. The Tigers can take sole possession of third in the conference with a win against Central Montcalm on Friday night at Central Montcalm. They then will face Sparta in Comstock Park on Wednesday evening for their opening game in the State playoffs.
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