Cardinal girls fall to Joburg
The Onaway High School varsity girls’ basketball team fell to 2-1 (0-1 Ski Valley Conference) Friday when it lost to visiting SVC power Johannesburg-Lewiston, 48-30.
Joburg entered the season as a co-favorite to win the Ski Valley.
The team many figure will challenge J-L for that title is Gaylord St. Mary – the team the Cardinals travel to face tonight (Friday).
“They were very good last season, and they’ve reloaded,” said Cardinal coach Marty Mix of the Snowbirds.
“This will be two tough tests for us, back-to-back, but I think we are in a good spot right now, and are building every day.”
Mix credited his team with playing exceptionally hard against Joburg, but said the Cards’ inability to put the ball in the basket – particularly in the second half – cost them.
“We played as hard as we had all season,” the coach said. “We were aggressive and got their key players into foul trouble early, which is something we wanted to do.
“Unfortunately, we hit only 11 of our 26 free throws after coming into the game shooting 70 percent from the stripe.
Then we just went ice cold and couldn’t find the hoop in the second half.
“I thought we played well defensively for most of the
We gave up an eight-point run in the third quarter that was tough to overcome.”
Onaway led 8-7 after one period. J-L took a 22-15 lead into the intermission, stretching that to 48-30 through three frames.
Kallie Shimel scored nine points, while Ashley LeCureux had eight.
Brittany Cherwinski scored 12 points for Joburg.
The OHS girls are scheduled to play two more home games before the holiday break – Wednesday against Central Lake and next Friday against Inland Lakes.
The squads then are off until January 2.