SPRING LAKE – In recent years the Spring Lake girls basketball team has relied on one or two main players to carry the offensive load.
In the last two seasons senior Jennifer Judge was definitely one of those players.
Judge only managed to score three points on Tuesday in Spring Lake’s season opener. Sounds like a loss, right?
Hardly. The Lakers demonstrated that they have a lot of players who can put the ball in the basket in a decisive 67-28 victory over Fremont on their home court.
[1]A total of 12 players scored for Spring Lake, a team determined to improve on last season’s disappointing 6-8 record.
The Lakers will visit Reeths-Puffer on Friday in another non-conference game.
“With Jennifer (Judge) and Meah (Bajt) combining to score seven points, and the team scoring 67 total, I am pretty happy with that,” said Spring Lake coach Rich Hyde. “We are not going to try and make this a big situation, but it was nice to get a really good start offensively.
“This group is a little bit different than in the past, because we are pretty deep, which allows us to practice together and go at each other.”
[2]The Lakers were led by junior Lauren Cavalier, who scored 10 points off the bench, while Ella Andree and Sara Spooner added eight points apiece. Sophomore Alexa Carter chipped in with seven points and seven rebounds.
“It was a little nerve-wracking going into it for us today,” Carter said. “Part way through the game it got a lot better, and now we gained a lot of confidence, and that’s what we needed.”
The game started out slowly with Spring Lake blanking the Packers 6-0 first the first quarter.
The Lakers finally got the offense rolling during the second quarter, outscoring Fremont by a 19-5 margin to take a commanding 25-5 lead at halftime.
The third quarter was much tighter. Spring Lake had a 13-11 edge and took a 38-16 lead into the fourth quarter. Senior Nicole Schmitt scored all five of her points during the third for the Lakers.
Spring Lake exploded in the final quarter, scoring 29 points, led by Spooner and Cavalier, who each tallied six points in the final eight minutes.
The Packers were led by Lily VandenBerg with a game-high 11 points while Jessica Bennett added seven.
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