By Greg Gielczyk
HOUGHTON LAKE – The young Houghton Lake girls basketball team is control of its own destiny in the Jack Pine Conference with five league games remaining.
The Bobcats are 6-3 in the Jack Pine and have two games left to play against league leader Gladwin (7-5, 7-1 Jack Pine) and one with second place Clare (10-4, 8-2 Jack Pine). A sweep of all three would secure at least a share of the conference title for the Bobcats.
No one would have expected the Bobcats to be in this position before the season started considering how much they’d lost to graduation and with a young team that had to find its identity on the court.
Houghton Lake has won four of its last five games, a 47-31 loss to Fulton on Friday, Feb. 3 snapping a three-game winning streak ruining their shot to push above .500 and leaving them with a 6-7 mark overall.
The Bobcats are just behind Beaverton (10-3, 7-3 Jack Pine).
“We’re one of the four teams that legitimately have a shot at the league,” Bobcats coach Greg Kauffman said. “Everything is in front of us and the kids know it. We’re making strides. Every game it seems like we just get a little bit better.
“The Harrison game (a 66-58 win on Thursday, Feb. 2) we had four girls in double figures. Offensively it was by far our best game of the season. We were only 16-for-34 from the free throw line and we must have missed about a half dozen layups. We could have put 80 points on the board that night. The kids were just playing really solid basketball.”
One of the Bobcats’ primary goals was to shut down Harrison’s leading scorer Ellie Coughlin, who had burned them for 18 points in the first meeting between the two teams. They succeeded, holding her to just one point for the game thanks to the defense of Logan Ordiway and Kelli Ignat.
Lainey Meigs paced the offensive attack for the Bobcats with 15 points and Lexi Blanchard notched 13 while also pulling down nine rebounds, dishing out six assists and picking off six steals in her best all-around game of the season.
Bridget Ripke followed Meigs in scoring with 14 points and she had nine rebounds and four steals. Alexis Souder put in 13 points and pilfered five steals and ripped down five rebounds. Ignat contributed four points, seven rebounds and two steals. Ordiway finished with three points, five rebounds and two steals. Ellie Connett had three points and two rebounds while Barnes added one point, four rebounds and three assists.
Houghton Lake overcame a poor game in which the Bobcats committed 22 turnovers, many of them unforced, to snare a tight 38-36 victory over Sanford Meridian on Thursday, Jan. 26. The Bobcats also had another bad night at the free throw line, going just 4-for-17.
Souder, who’s only a sophomore, led the team in scoring with 15 points while coming up with six steals. Ignat finished with six points and nine rebounds. Ripke finished with five points, six rebounds and three steals. Meigs scored four points. Blanchard had two points, seven steals and four assists. Taylor Nutt added two points and four rebounds. Madisen Forman and Connett each scored two points.
“We still have some little things we got to fix,” Kauffman said. “Free throws and stuff like that will cost you come tournament time. Kids that are missing them are good shooters, I think it’s just a focus thing and maybe just a little confidence here and there.
“If we can just tighten up those things, finish some shots around the basket I think we have a shot to do some damage down the stretch.”
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