Thankfully for the Munising girls basketball team, home court wasn’t enough of an advantage for Brimley. The two squads met on Brimley’s floor on Monday, in a Division 4 regional semi-final battle, and it was the visiting Lady Mustangs who kept their season alive, getting a well-played 47-30 victory.
“Playing a regional game on the other team’s home court we knew we’d have our work cut out for us,” head coach Matt Mattson said. “Brimley has very good guard play and they use their quickness well with backdoor cuts and the ability to knock down the three point shot. I felt if we were defensively sound that we’d be able to use our advantage in the post to out score them. That’s pretty much how the game went except for we had to use a ton of minutes from our bench because of foul problems.”
Bailey Corcoran made three free throws and knocked down a shot from the floor as well in the first, and Munising led just 7-6 after one. Emmy Crisp and Julia Prunick had four points each in the second and Corcoran drilled a three, but Munising only led 23-20 at the half.
In the third, six more points by Crisp and four more by Corcoran put their lead to 33-23 entering the fourth.
In the final minutes, Crisp scored seven points, including going three-of-four from the line to help salt away the win. Corcoran also had six points in the quarter; two on free throws and Prunick was two-of-two at the stripe.
The Mustangs had Crisp lead them with 19 points and right behind her was Corcoran with 18. Prunick added six and Dayne Behning scored four.
On Friday, Munising was able to win their second straight district championship. The Mustangs were playing host Newberry in the finals, and came up with a 47-40 victory.
“Winning the district championship and hitting the 20 win mark feels good and I’m happy these girls have been rewarded for their hard work,”Mattson said. “Newberry has been playing very good basketball the second half of the season and present some issues led by a six foot point guard. Newberry played much better than when we saw them in the regular season. We also got ourselves in foul trouble so we had to get away from our pressure defense. This was truly a team win where we needed to use our depth to our advantage. The game was close the entire time, we just couldn’t pull away, but played well enough to hang on.”
Munising held a 13-9 lead after the first quarter. Their lead stood at 26-19 at the half and 36-31 entering the fourth.
Crisp hit for six points in the final stanza and Corcoran added four more to help them hang on for the victory.
The Mustangs were led on offense by Crisp who had 21 points and Corcoran who added 17. Prunick had three and with two each was Kate Mattson, Behning and Sabryna Smith.
On Wednesday, March 6, Munising opened the post-season with a district semi-final win at home over Superior Central, 54-13.
“Playing Superior Central to start the tournament was a good draw for us, they have been devastated by injuries this year but (S-C head coach) Skip Rutter did a great job putting a team on the floor and a team that played hard.”
On top of the win, the night was also highlighted by Crisp reaching the 1000 point mark for her career; after entering the game seven points shy of the milestone.
“To the Cougars’ credit they weren’t going to let Emmy just have her seven points,”Mattson said. “Midway through the second quarter she stepped to the free throw line and scored her 1000th point. We had gained control of the game and were able to sit our starters in the second half and come out of the game injury free. We had nine different players score so it was nice to spread some of the scoring around.”
Munising had leads of 17-1, 38-1 and 48-5 at the quarter breaks.
Corcoran led the team with 12 points, Behning and Elizabeth Wing each had 10 points and Crisp netted seven. Mattson and Prunick each had four points, Smith chipped in with three and getting two each was Jailen Hancock and Kaylen Kienitz.
Munising (21-5 overall) took on St. Ignace (17-7) on Wednesday in Newberry for the regional championship. The winner of that game plays in a quarterfinal contest on Tuesday, held at Gladstone.
