Lion Teams Split In BR

Connor Swinehart joins an elite group of players as he reaches 1000 career points Monday night

Swinehart reaches four figures in loss to Cardinals

Big Rapids 49 Newaygo 44
Monday night the Newaygo teams traveled to Big Rapids and split their games.
The Boys squad ran into a Cardinal team that has caught fire in the second half of the season and did the same in the second half of this game.
Trailing by 5 at the break the Cards fired off a 16-2 run in the third and held off a furious Lion attack in the final frame to earn their 8th win in the last 9 games.
Coach Barrette: “We played a bad 3rd quarter giving up a lead we had built and having to play catch up late.  We tied the game with around 1:30 left, but missed some opportunities down the stretch.”
Connor Swinehart canned a team high 20 points and in doing so eclipsed the 1000 point mark for his career an accomplishment shared by the names found in the Lion trophy case.
Ryan Brummel continues to have a hot hand as he drained 15 for the visitors.
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Newaygo 56 Big Rapids 35
The Newaygo girls team ran their winning streak to 3 behind another stat sheet stuffing performance by Jaylee Long who tallied 13 points 4 assists and 4 rebounds while playing some stifling defense.
The Lions ran to a 17-6 lead after one and never looked back. Emmerson Goodin continues to show what a force she can be in the paint as she took a dozen off the glass to go with her 8 points. Lily Ruehmeier fired in 12 points  and the always steady play of Sophia Frisbie resulted in 6 assists 6 points and 5 rebounds.
Coach Thomasma:"I thought tonight was one of our most complete games of the year.  We really played well as a team tonight. We shot the ball well, rebounded and played good defense."
The win gives Newaygo 10 on the season against 6 losses and their 7-5 conference mark makes them one of four teams within  a game of each other in the race for second place in the Gold.