×

Maroons too much to handle for Jets

EagleHerald/Brian Bell North Central's Delaney Smith looks for a passing lane while Menominee's Jenna Nolde (left) and Kendell Klatt (back) apply pressure.

By Brian Bell

Menominee Eagle Herald

MENOMINEE — There’s a theme beginning to form for the Menominee girls basketball team.

The Maroons have won four in a row after losing the season opener and the team has done it by playing suffocating defense and being unselfish with the basketball.

On Monday, Menominee (4-1) handed the Jets (2-2) its second loss of the season with a 64-40 victory here.

“Our main goal coming out of the gates was to make them make mistakes,” Menominee coach Lucas Chouinard said. “The girls did a great job of forcing (North Central) to the sidelines and we got our traps and they made the mistakes.

“Offensively, the girls are very unselfish. We spread the ball around very well. Instead of taking a good shot, they want to take great shots and a lot of our shots in the first half were wide open and when the girls get wide open shots, they usually knock them down and tonight they did that the entire game.”

Menominee started the game on a 13-4 run, thanks in part to 3-pointers from Emma Hofer, Emma Anderson and Erin Barrette on back-to-back-to-back possessions. Bree Arsenault broke up the run with a triple of her own, but Josie Hofer answered on the other end with a 3-pointer, followed by buckets from Barrette and Anderson to close out the quarter and take a 20-7 lead after the first.

The Maroons full-court press bothered the North Central ball handlers, causing a lot of miscue’s offensively for the Jets, and kept running with the ball on offense and finding open shooters in the second quarter.

Emma Hofer started things off with a corner-three, Anderson drilled a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer and after Andie Arsenault made a basket inside for the Jets, Anderson corralled an offensive rebound, dribbled it out to the corner and pulled up for another 3-pointer to extend the lead to 29-13. Jenna Nolde ended the quarter with a 7-0 run by herself to give the Maroons a 36-13 halftime advantage.

“I knew (Menominee) is a good team and I knew they had good shooters, I just didn’t know they had that many good shooters,” North Central coach Lee Vincent said. “I figured we had to play man-to-man just to kind of keep up with them and then they have the big girl (Anderson) who can shoot three’s too.

“Their defense is good and it disrupted our ball-handling and they’re a very fast team. We weren’t really on our game tonight. We didn’t give up but we had a lull there where it was like ‘okay, who do we guard next.’ Menominee is a good team and if we get beat by a team like that, I can accept that.”

Menominee was on fire in the first half from long range, going 8-for-13 for a 62 percent clip. The Maroons finished the game 10-21 from deep (47 percent) and 24-58 from the field (41 percent).

Things got a little better for North Central in the second half, but the first-half struggles were too much to overcome. Menominee held the Jets’ to 13-55 shooting in the game and held their leading scorer, Andie Arsenault, to 10 points.

“Some of us are still in the learning stages and we just have to get a little more aggressive and make some shots,” Vincent said. “Our main scorer didn’t make many shots tonight and she doesn’t usually lose the ball and she did that a few times. But that’s because (Menominee) plays great defense. That’s probably the best team we’ve seen so far. You have to dribble really fast, hard and low in order to get by them and we struggled tonight.”

Arsenault made a basket inside with just over six minutes to play in the game to cut the deficit to 50-29, but over the next two and a half minutes Menominee used a 12-0 run capped by Emma Hofer’s fastbreak layup to put the nail in the coffin.

Anderson finished with 17 points, seven rebounds, three assists, three blocks and a steal for the Maroons. Nolde had 14 points and Emma Hofer added 10.

This was Menominee’s last home game until Jan. 18 when the Maroons host Kingsford.

Bree Arsenault and Chloe Wells led North Central with 13 points each.

The Jets, who also dropped the jayvee game 42-28, resume at North Dickinson Jan. 4.

North Central 7 6 10 17 — 40

Menominee 20 16 13 15 — 64

North Central — B. Arsenault 13, A. Arsenault 10, Linder 4, Wells 13. FT: 11-16; F: 12; Fouled out: None; 3-point field goals: B. Arsenault 3.

Menominee — Hofer 10, Barrette 5, Barrette 7, Wellner 4, Anderson 17, Hofer 3, Nolde 14, Bellisle 3. FT: 6-10; F: 14; Fouled out: None; 3-point field goals: E. Anderson 3, E. Hofer 2, J. Nolde 2, S. Barrette, E. Barrette, J. Hofer.

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.62/week.

Subscribe Today