Lady Cards advance, Hurons, Vikings end season at district semifinals

One county girls’ basketball team moves on while two others ended their seasons in the district semifinals March 6. 

Onaway girls team advanced to the district championship game while Posen and Rogers City had their seasons end. 

In Onaway, the host Cardinals took a 33-31 win over Rogers City to move on to Friday’s district championship game. The Hurons led 18-17 at halftime and moved ahead 22-19 with five minutes left in the third period.

Then Onaway went on a 10-point run to lead 29-24 at the end of the third quarter.

The Cards play Inland Lakes Friday at 6 p.m. The Bulldogs were 36-33 winners over Northern Michigan Christian in Wednesday’s second game.

The winner of that game advances to play the winner of the Mackinaw City vs. St. Ignace game in the regional semifinal game set for Harbor Light Christian Tuesday at 7 p.m. The regional finals are in Pellston March 13 at 7 p.m.

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The Posen girls’ basketball has seen enough of Mio’s Mia McGregor to last a long time. The Thunderbolt freshman lit up the scoreboard for 48 points in the 63-43 Mio win over Posen in the district semifinals Wednesday.

Posen coach Eric Hincka assigned two players to shadow McGregor all over the court, with the other three players in a triangle zone, but it didn’t seem to matter. The Mio scoring machine would routinely bring the ball down the court, look for an opening to drive, and if blocked on the way to the basket, would step back behind the 3-point line and drill a bomb. She connected on 11, 3-pointers, four 2-pointers and hit seven free throws.

“That is the result of hard work in the gym. That is getting up at 5 in the morning and hitting the gym before school. That is what it looks like right there,” coach Hincka said. “Our girls did a phenomenal job keeping in front of her. She had a couple of drives but not too many. But when you are hitting threes like that, how do you stop her.”

McGregor had four 3-pointers as Mio led 24-6 at the end of the first quarter. Ella Hincka had two baskets for the Vikings, both on shots from the baseline and she added another basket on a drive to the hoop.

Posen got the offense going better in the second quarter, with Ella Szatkowski getting 10 points, including two 3-pointers from the left wing. The first one came with 2:45 left in the half and the second one came with 50 seconds showing on the clock to cut the lead to 33-20.

The Vikings outscored the Thunderbolts in the third quarter, 13-12, as scoring came from Szatkowski with seven and two points each from Ella Hincka, Mallory Donajkowski and Jocelyn Hincka on a coast-to-coast drive to the basket. Jocelyn Hincka’s basket cut the Mio lead to 10 at 41-31 with 1:41 left in the third quarter. Then Szatkowski hit two free throws to make it 42-33 with 36 seconds left in the third quarter.

But McGregor, with two Vikings in her face, stepped back from the left corner and launched a rainbow that found nothing but net as the horn sounded to end the third quarter with Mio leading 45-33. That would be as close as Posen would come.

“The season wasn’t what we expected with the losses. We expected to get a few more wins, but we lost a few close games. But then we came back and beat some teams the second time around,” the coach said.

Szatkowski, playing her last game as a Posen basketball player along with fellow seniors Donajkowski, Lillie Rocco and Jocelyn Hincka, scored 19 points for Posen. Szatkowski ended her career with 1,766 points in her career, second all-time for Posen. She had 516 points this season, averaging 22.4 points per game and led the team with 256 rebounds, a 11.1 clip per game.

Ella Hincka scored 14 points in the Mio game and Molly Chappa and Jocelyn Hincka added four points each.