Todd Rose | Daily Press Gladstone’s Ryan Polley (left) drives to the basket as Kingsford’s Andrew Paupore (23) and teammate Caden Downy (12) watch Thursday at Gladstone.

GLADSTONE — The Gladstone Braves boys’ basketball team (4-3) came up just short against the Kingsford Flivvers (5-2) as they were edged 48-44 Thursday night in Gladstone.

“I’m just extremely proud of the way we played as a team,” said Kingsford coach Dan Olkkonen. “We faltered a little bit down in Menominee … our whole mantra is sticking together. We have to stick together and be a better team before we can think of the x’s and o’s of winning. I’m proud of them and they did a good job.”

At the start of the second half, Gladstone held the lead 30-28. During the third quarter, they managed to hold on to it — aside from a brief 20 seconds that Kingsford led 31-30 off a three from Andrew Paupore — until about the two-minute mark. That’s when shots started going in for the Flivvers.

With one minute left in the third, Hunter Bilgreen put up a two to tie the game 40-40. Danny Weber followed that up with his own two for Kingsford to take the lead 42-40 as time expired in the quarter.

The fourth quarter saw little scoring, with Gladstone putting up 4 points and Kingsford 6.

With about 4 seconds left in the game, the Flivvers led 46-44 as Nick Nora was inbounding the ball on Gladstone’s end of the court. Under pressure, he called a timeout, the last one for the Flivvers. On the next attempt, his pass went bouncing out of bounds.

Ultimately, the Braves couldn’t capitalize on the sophomore’s mistakes.

“That’s the learning experience,” said Olkkonen. “You have a sophomore point guard who I’m trying to get the ball in so we can get it to our best free throw shooter, and all of the sudden, he throws it to me over here on the bench.”

Despite the late-game hiccups, Olkkonen praised Nora’s performance.

“For as bad of a game he had Monday — he didn’t play at all in the second half — I thought he did a really good job,” he said. “(He was) getting some points for us and really distributing the ball. Defensively, I thought he did a nice job on Ballard … he even had seven or eight rebounds.”

Olkkonen gives the credit for the win to the team as a whole.

“I give it to our team, this win, and our bench,” he said. “For not having a crowd in here, our bench created more noise than they ever have … It was a great team victory for everyone in the game or on the bench.”

Nora led the Flivvers in scoring with 17 points. Zach Person also had 10.

Braves coach Mike Cretens was blunt with his assessment of the loss.

“The ball didn’t go in the hoop today,” he said. “We shot 13 of 51 from the field today. I don’t think you’re going to win any games shooting 13 of 51 in a whole basketball game.

“We’ve been averaging 70 points a game, and we scored 44 tonight.”

Despite the low-scoring game, Cretens was satisfied with the looks his team had.

“I think we were getting the shots we wanted,” he said. “I’m going to go back and watch the film and I think I’ll be happy with all the shot selection we had … I think we got all the shots we wanted. They just weren’t falling tonight.”

Cretens was happy with the team’s defensive performance, he said.

Cam Ballard put up 14 points for the Braves and Rane Castor 11.

Kingsford also won the JV game 60-49 while Gladstone won the Freshman matchup 49-26.

Both teams are in action tonight with Kingsford hosting Marquette and the Braves taking on rival Escanaba in Escanaba.

Kingsford 16 12 14 6 — 48

Gladstone 13 17 10 4 — 44

Kingsford — Nora 17, Person 10, Bracket 7, Weber 4, Meneguzzo 4, Paupore 3, Bilgreen 3; F: 12; FT: 3-8; Fouled out: None; 3-point field goals: Paupore.

Gladstone — Ballard 14, Castor 11, Potier 7, Polley 5, Dowsey 4, Hughes 3; F: 16; FT: 5-6; Fouled out: None; 3-point field goals: Hughes