Rob Roos | Sault Ste. Marie Evening News Escanaba’s Keira Maki (12) drives to the basket, while Sault Ste. Marie’s Claire Erickson (24) defends during a girls basketball game Friday night.

SAULT STE. MARIE — Sault Ste. Marie turned back the Escanaba Eskymos 54-44 in a non-conference girls basketball game Friday night.

The Blue Devils took an early lead and never gave it up in their season opener against the Eskymos.

Esky stayed close but always seemed to be trying to erase a six-to-10 point deficit and couldn’t close the gap.

Sophomore Keira Maki finished with a game-high 20 points, and junior Mari Bink scored 11 points for the Eskymos (0-2).

“The Sault is well-coached, and they have some nice talent,” Escanaba coach Mike Beveridge said. “I thought we played pretty well tonight. They (Sault) had a size advantage, but they didn’t dominate us on the boards. We came over here and improved on some things from our opening game against Marquette. We’re working on taking care of the ball, and we did do a better job of that. We still had too many turnovers, but it was better.

“We’re a young team,” Beveridge said. “We’re counting on two sophomores and a freshman who are on the floor for us a lot. They haven’t played much at this varsity pace yet. We’re going to take some lumps early, but we’ll hopefully be a different team later in the season.”

Bailey Barron scored six points, while Madison Monkevich had five points and Katelyn Stalboerger had two for Esky.

Claire Erickson scored 16 points, and Mackenzie Bell notched 12 points to lead the Blue Devils (1-0).

“Overall I was happy with the effort,” Sault High coach Pat Bennin said. “That was the No. 1 thing we talked about. We knew we were going to make a lot of mistakes, with so many kids playing their first varsity games. We played with effort, and there were a lot of bright spots.”

Escanaba employed 1-3-1 and 2-3 zones in addition to some man-to-man defense to counter the Sault’s pair of 6-foot starters, Erickson and Laura Innerebner. Innerebner finished with eight points, while Taylor Pratt added seven points for the Sault.

The Blue Devils jumped out to an 8-2 lead and took a 15-9 edge through the first quarter. The Eskymos trailed by as many as 11 points but fought back within 22-17 at halftime.

Esky stayed within striking distance in the second half and got as close as 48-42 after a 3-pointer from Bink with 1:30 remaining. But the Blue Devils made their free throws to close out the win.

“We haven’t worked much against a zone yet, and they threw a lot of different defensive looks at us,” Bennin said. “Our effort against the zone was clunky at best, and again some of that was to be expected with our inexperience at guard. But we were able to get out and run the floor a little bit and that gave some easy baskets. Those transition points were big, and then we didn’t have to play as much in the halfcourt.”

Last season Escanaba and Sault High played twice and split two close games. Both teams lost some key players from last year however, with the Eskymos replacing Ms. UP Basketball Nicole Kamin and the Blue Devils breaking in four new starters.

“You can’t replace a Nicole Kamin,” Beveridge said. “We’re still finding our identity. We have the pieces, but we’re still putting them together. We have a good core. It will take some time, but we’ll get better.”

Escanaba defeated Sault High 33-32 in the junior varsity game. Morgan Maki scored 11 points for the Eskymos.

Escanaba returns home to play Negaunee on Tuesday. Sault Ste. Marie visits Marquette Tuesday.

Escanaba 9 8 11 16 — 44

SSM 15 7 13 19 — 54

Escanaba — Barron 6, Monkevich 5, Maki 20, Stalboerger 2, Bink 11. FT: 10-19; F: 17; Fouled out: Barron; 3-point field goals: 2 (Maki 1, Bink 1).

Sault Ste. Marie — Bell 12, Nolan 2, Marchand 4, Pratt 7, Innerebner 8, Maurer 5, Erickson 16. FT: 20-28; F: 18; 3-point field goals: 2 (Marchand 1, Maurer 1).