Justin St. Ours | Daily Press Bay College’s Haley Trudell (32) shoots a 3-pointer against Bryant & Stratton’s Kiarra Otto (3) Saturday at Bay College.

ESCANABA — It wasn’t the debut Bay College women’s basketball coach Matt Gregory wanted, as the Norse were routed by 10th-ranked Bryant & Stratton 84-39 during their final regular-season home game Saturday.

The Bobcats jumped out to a fast start as Marleah Drake sank a 3-pointer to make it 5-2 two minutes in and start a 13-0 run that lasted for three minutes.

“Our defensive effort was spot on,” Bobcats coach Jeff Lorenz said. “We came off a quick turnaround — we played Gogebic (Friday) and held them to 33 — and 16 hours later, we’re back playing basketball again. We did a really good job holding a team like Bay College to 39 points. I thought our defensive effort was where it needed to be for 40 minutes.”

It wasn’t until five and a half minutes in that the Norse found the basket again on two free throws from Holly Wardynski. A minute and a half later Kaitlyn Hardwick added two more from the charity stripe to make it 17-6.

“We fought back here and there,” said Gregory, coaching in his first game after the Norse parted ways with former coach Rob Robinson Wednesday. “Obviously, it (wasn’t) a game where you want to have your head coaching debut, but you go up there and you try your best. We had some things that didn’t quite (click) for us. We were a little stagnant on offense, and we didn’t have a lot of aggressiveness early on. That really hurt us trying to catch up. They knocked down a lot of shots that put us on the back foot.”

The Norse trailed 22-9 after the first quarter, then were outscored 25-6 in the second to go into halftime trailing 47-15.

“It’s just about getting the girls mentally prepared,” Lorenz said. “We’re at the end of our season, and we’re playing for something bigger than just the season. We’re just taking it one game at a time. I told the girls, ‘If you can give us maximum effort every game, good things will happen.'”

Drake led the Bobcats with 33 points and five triples. La’Janique Perry-Ellis added 18 points and six steals, while Kiarra Otto chipped in 17 points.

The Norse were led by JuliAnn Wickman with nine points and three treys.

“We’ve got to try to put all the things together,” Gregory said. “(After this), you’ve just got to put it behind you and focus on the important things like the region against Gogebic Wednesday. We’ve got to figure out what our identity is going to be from here on out. (Coach Robinson) left a good blueprint for us to follow. They’re a great group of girls, and (we’ll) just be making some minor changes here and there.”

Bay visits Gogebic Community College Wednesday.

Bryant & Stratton 22 25 13 24 — 84

Bay College 9 6 10 14 — 39

Bryant & Stratton — Drake 33, Perry-Ellis 18, Otto 17, Hortman 7, Rodgers 5, Watkins 4. F: 20; Fouled out: Watkins; FT: 14-18; 3-point field goals: Drake 5, Rodgers 1, Perry-Ellis 1, Hortman 1.

Bay College — Wickman 9, Wardynski 8, Trudell 6, Hardwick 5, Molina 5, Dalgord 3, Ackerman 1, Olsen 1, Bloniarz 1. F: 16; Fouled out: none; FT: 13-17; 3-point field goals: Wickman 3, Trudell 2, Molina 1.