The two day Northern Lights Conference Tournament wrapped up Saturday afternoon in Rudyard with both girls and boys teams from Kinross Maplewood Baptist (MWB) winning their respective titles.
The girls beat the Big Bay DeNoc Black Bears 43-36 while the boys were victorious over the Hannanville Soaring Eagles 74-60.
In the girls game, MWB was up 10-6 after the first quarter, but the Big Bay DeNoc defense stiffened up and did not allow a single MWB point while scoring nine themselves.
At halftime, Coach Caroline May made some needed adjustments.
"Zero points in the second quarter for us. Big Bay DeNoc caught onto our offense and they just made the right adjustments, so we had to make some major adjustments ourselves at halftime. We brought our three big players out from underneath. Usually have our inside game to go to but we had to change that up. They came outside and hit some big shots. We never played that way against Big Bay and it made a difference," Coach May said.
The fourth quarter belonged to MWB, outscoring Big Bay DeNoc 20-9.
The three seniors stepped up today.
Aksana Chromy led the team with 15 points, Chloe May added 12 while Finley Hudechek chipped in 10 points.
In the boys game, MWB had the 19-13 lead after the first quarter and 34-30 at halftime.
MWB had an impressive third quarter, expanding the lead to 56-44 and never really let the Soaring Eagles get too close into the fourth quarter, winning by 14 points.
Sophomore Carver Day had an impressive showing, leading the Black Bears with 27 points, freshman Caden Chromy had a great day posting 19, and junior Ian Brown added 10.
"They had some good shooters. We were supposed to jump screens but that didn't happen at times, but we were quite a bit more balanced than them so that helped out," Coach Greg Chromy said.
This is Chromy's first season as head coach.
"I have always coached football so it's a different preparation. For me, getting the kids pumped up ready to play is good for football, but this basketball team, it's not good. They got too worked up and so they played outside their heads in the first quarter. After that, I knew we had (the game) under control," Chromy concluded.
