MUSKEGON TWP. – The Fruitport girls basketball team picked the wrong game, at the wrong time of year, to run into a scoring drought.

It happened on Wednesday night in the semifinal round of the girls Division 2 district tournament at Orchard View High School, and as a result, the Trojans’ season is over.

They fell behind 7-0 in the early minutes of the game and were outscored 7-2 in the third quarter and 20-10 overall in the second half. In the end it added up to a 36-24 loss to Whitehall.

The loss cost Fruitport a chance to advance to the district finals for the second straight year. The Trojans put up a fight in the title game against Spring Lake last season, and were hoping to get another shot this year.

“We probably had 28 turnovers,” said Fruitport head coach Brian Packard about the offensive struggles. “That’s against a team that doesn’t press. They pack it in the paint and we didn’t really have any shooters today. I think that’s probably the most frustrating thing, that our first six possessions were probably turnovers.”

Fruitport ended the season with a 9-14 record.

On a positive note, the Trojans have now increased their victory total in each of the past four seasons.

They only had one win back in 2021-22, then went from four the next year to seven and eight, and finally nine this season. It’s been slow but steady growth for a program that has not won a lot in the past.

Fruitport will have a solid base to build on next season, with most of the players on the regular season roster eligible to return next year, including starters Izzy Hanson-Wilbur, Lily Johnson and Regan Wilson.

The Trojans will say goodbye to three seniors – Ava Powell, Kendall Lee and Cierra Fri.

“It’s good to see some growth,” Packard said about the increase in the victory total. “We still probably left five or six wins on the table. So it’s a little bittersweet because of that, because I probably didn’t coach us good enough to get there.”

After falling behind 7-0 midway through the first quarter, Fruitport got a basket and a free throw from Powell and trailed 9-3 at the first break.

The Trojans came back to life in the second quarter, going on an 8-1 run to take an 11-10 lead with 4:38 left in the first half. The lead was short-lived, however, because Whitehall ended the quarter on a 6-3 run and had a 16-14 lead at halftime.

Fri had five points in the second quarter while Wilson added four.

The offense went quiet again in the second half, which proved to be the Trojans’ downfall.

Their only two points in the third quarter came on a pair of free throws from Fri. They were fortunate that Whitehall didn’t score much, either, and they only trailed 23-16 headed into the fourth quarter.

Fruitport didn’t hit its first field goal of the second half until almost halfway through the fourth quarter, however, when Hanson-Wilbur nailed a triple.

Whitehall had a 13-8 advantage over the last eight minutes to nail down the victory and earn a spot in the district championship game against Spring Lake. Hanson-Wilbur had two three-pointers in the fourth quarter for all six of her points on the night.

“We just kind of stopped moving,” Packard said about the second half offense. “I don’t know if we were tried from pressing or what, but we stopped moving. We just didn’t do a good job of reacting tonight.”

Fri led the Trojans with seven points overall while Wilson added four.