WHITEHALL — Montague entered Friday's battle with rival Whitehall with a plan and great energy, especially on defense, and held down Whitehall's explosive offense much of the first quarter. However, the Vikings were simply too good to allow that strategy to sustain, and they caught fire in the second quarter and never looked back, routing the Wildcats 72-28 to retain the Bridge trophy.
The score was only 4-3 in Whitehall's favor late in the first quarter before Hunter Osborne scored, followed immediately by a Whitehall timeout. From that point, the Vikings broke through against a Montague defense that tried to keep Whitehall (11-2, 7-0 West Michigan Conference Lakes) out of the paint and went at the Vikes hard when they did have the ball there. Camden Thompson scored an and-one basket in the final seconds of the quarter, and Evan Thomas rebounded Thompson's free throw and put it in for two more points, making it 10-3.
Whitehall exploded on offense in the second quarter, scoring 23 points - 17 of them in just over the first four minutes of the quarter - to seize control of the game. The Vikes made four three-pointers in the frame.
"We just settled down a little bit," Whitehall coach Christian Subdon said of the second quarter. "We were trying to find our way and they
were doing a couple different things. Credit to them in that first
quarter; they slowed us down, so we missed some shots that we probably
should have hit."
Montague (3-10, 1-6 WMC Lakes), which has played with better energy in the new year, displayed it again early. Even Wildcats' coach Nick Thaler allowed that with Whitehall's deeper bench, going as hard as his team did early was unlikely to be sustainable, especially when Montague was unable to get some early points to put game pressure on Whitehall.
"We had to have this game in the 30s or 40s to have a chance," Thaler said. "If it's in
the 70s and 60s, it's going to be a
little bit more difficult for us to do that, because we're
not a great offensive team. If we can make it a messier game and
try to dig it out of the dirt, I think that's more beneficial to us.
That's what we're trying to do. I thought extending in the zone (defense) worked
well for one quarter, but playing that physical and playing
that tough for four quarters is tough to ask when you don't have a
deep bench."
Thompson was again the statistical leader, racking up 23 points and 14 rebounds, but he got a lot of help on the boards from Corde Anderson, who was a major factor early in the game. Anderson had seven boards to go with 10 points and also totaled four steals. Those two, plus Kal Koehler - who didn't play in the first half but still scored eight points - provide a tall, athletic trio that no team in the West Michigan Conference can match when they're at their best.
"Cam and him were fighting over boards a few times, and it just brings an
extra level to our offense when we can trust shooters to shoot and not
have to worry about it," Subdon said of Anderson. "Right now, we're rebounding about 40-something percent of our misses. That's pretty good."
The game wasn't totally without positives for Montague, which saw Riley Mulder score an impressive third-quarter dunk, matching Thompson's almost customary throwdown earlier in the game. Thaler said as far as he knows it was Montague's first dunk at Whitehall in four years.
"He's that good of an athlete," Thaler said. "That
would have been nice if that dunk was to put us up by two instead of
putting us down by 28 or 30. I did ask the official if we
could have a little bit more points on that dunk for style, but I didn't convince him enough."
Subdon said what he was most pleased by was his team's businesslike approach. The Vikings struggled in a December win over Manistee, and ever since they have been much more intentional about their approach to WMC Lakes opponents.
"We've done a much
better job of playing against Whitehall on nights that we feel
that we might be the better team," Subdon said. "We didn't do a very good job against
Manistee in that sense. Since then they've really said, 'We're not
going to let that happen again.' We did it again tonight."
Cole Herremans led Montague with six points on a pair of three-pointers.
The Vikings geared up for a big week of games following the win; they play Mona Shores Tuesday and travel to their top WMC Lakes opposition, Ludington, Friday.
"I would say (it's) probably a
conference title game at Ludington on Friday," Subdon said. "We're excited for the opportunity."
