GRAYLING — Grayling’s girls basketball team got off to an incredibly slow start and found itself trailing Charlevoix by 16 points after the first quarter on its home court Tuesday night.
It left the Lady Vikings in a bad spot, and while they battled all game long, they just didn’t have firepower to recover, and the Red Rayders finished with a 56-37 win in the Lake Michigan Conference.
“Outside of those first quarter struggles, we turned the ball over a couple times too many on the press and they got a couple easy buckets off of it … It’s a two-point ball game when you look at the other three quarters.
– GRAYLING HEAD COACH DANIEL BRANDT
The game got out of hand quickly, as the Rayders exploded out of the gate for a 21-5 first quarter. Grayling scored much closer to the Rayders in the second period, but were edged, 11-10 to trail, 32-15 at the half.
Each team scored 16 points in the third period, and the Lady Vikings were looking up at a 48-31 deficit going into the fourth quarter. Charlevoix had a 7-6 edge in the final eight minutes.
“Outside of those first quarter struggles, we turned the ball over a couple times too many on the press and they got a couple easy buckets off of it,” said Grayling head coach Daniel Brandt. “It’s a two-point ball game when you look at the other three quarters
“We just couldn’t offset that first quarter. We couldn’t put the ball in the hoop, and we couldn’t get shots off. We got shots at the rim; we just couldn’t get them to drop through.
“In the third and fourth quarters we started to claw back into it but needed to knock down some clutch shots toward the end. We got it within 10 at one point, but we couldn’t it down any further.”
Rylan Finstrom did her best to keep the Lady Vikings in the game, scoring a game-high 25 points.
Makenzie Castle, Sage Jones and Cali D’Armour each had three.
Grayling saw its record drop to 5-13 overall and 2-11 in the conference with its third straight loss.
The Lady Vikings are next scheduled to see action Thursday at East Jordan.
