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Republic holds off Mid Pen boys

Boys basketball

Avery Bundgaard | Daily Press Mid Peninsula’s Dylan Trudell (3) goes up for a layup against Republic-Michigamme’s Jake Carlson during the third quarter Thursday at Mid Pen.

ST. NICHOLAS — A 3-point attempt by Mid Peninsula’s Terry Brower was off the mark as the Republic-Michigamme boys’ basketball team held on to beat the Wolverines 40-37 Thursday night.

“We played good defense and I knew we had to keep them around 40 if we wanted to win this game and we ended up doing that,” said Republic coach Mario Marana. “We knew we had our hands full with the Brower kid. He’s a great player and he has the green light from anywhere. I feel we handled him very well.”

The Hawks didn’t shut Brower down completely, but they held him to eight points on 3-of-15 shooting from the floor.

“River Shumate played a heck of a game on Brower on the defensive end,” said Marana. “I don’t know what he did offensively, but defensively I know he played a heck of a game for us.”

The Hawks held a one-point lead over the Wolverines entering the fourth quarter, but quickly went up by five as they hit on their first three shots while Mid Pen went 0-for-7.

Avery Bundgaard | Daily Press Mid Peninsula’s Brandon Nummilien (5) grabs a rebound between teammates Dylan Trudell (left) and Zach Englund (10) during the third quarter Thursday at Mid Pen.

The Wolverines then started to feed Billy Carlson down low as he scored eight straight points including the bucket that put Mid Pen up by a point with 1:15 remaining.

“Billy has that knack inside and that’s what I told the refs that they’re all over him,” said Mid Pen coach Mark Branstrom. “He doesn’t jump but he’s just smooth inside. He waits and waits and then he goes up. As long as they were going to let us get it to him we were going to keep pounding it inside.”

Shumate connected on a layup with 55 seconds remaining which put the Hawks up for good. The Wolverines missed all four of their shots down the stretch and had to foul late. Republic hit 2-of-4 free throws including a miss off a front end of a one-and-one that gave Mid Pen the chance to tie the game with five seconds left but was unable to convert.

“They showed me a lot of character there,” said Branstrom. “We have two young sophomores at the guards and we do have three seniors out there but the two sophomores out there did what they needed to do and made some good passes. Some of the things that didn’t work out for us was we did have a couple turnovers and we had some mistakes on the offensive end. Overall it was one of our better games and it could have gone either way.”

The Hawks got off to a good start in the first quarter as they went up 6-0 before Mid Pen’s Zach Englund scored five straight points to cut the deficit to one. The Wolverines kept rolling as it took a 12-11 lead into the second quarter.

The second period was pretty even with each team trading baskets. The Hawks eventually took a three-point lead at one point and led 23-21 at halftime.

The game slowed down in the third quarter as both teams kept it pretty even but R-M took a 30-29 lead into the final period.

Dylan Hanninen led the Hawks with 22 points while Carlson paced the Wolverines with 12 and Englund added 11.

The Wolverines don’t suit up again until they travel to Rapid River Dec. 28.

The summary:

Republic-Michigamme 11 12 7 10 — 40

Mid Peninsula 12 9 8 8 — 37

Republic-Michigamme — Shumate 7, Hanninen 22, Ball 5, Carlson 6; FT: 4-9; F: 14; Fouled out: none; 3-point field goals: Hanninen 2.

Mid Peninsula — Brower 8, Englund 11, Trudell 4, Nummilien 2, Carlson 12; FT: 3-10; F: 16; Fouled out: Trudell; 3-point field goals: Brower 1, Englund 1.

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