Samsons win, Lady Samsons fall against new opponent

MILWAUKEE — The Samsons pulled out a 71-67 in their first time playing Bryant & Stratton College Friday night.

Gogebic led by as many as 11 points in the second half, but Bryant & Stratton came back and tied it.

“Good win for us,” GCC coach Dennis Mackey said. “We’ve been trying to find our way of late. Wednesday night, I thought we played well and hit shots. I thought we shot the ball well tonight, with the exception of our free throws (12-29), which really is tough to take.”

The Samsons also missed nearly 10 point-blank shots.

“We have to make some of those and put this away,” Mackey said. “In the end, we had to make a big defensive stop to get the win.”

With 56 seconds left, GCC’s Garfield Voker was fouled on a drive to the basket and he made one to give the Samsons a 68-67 lead.

Gogebic’s Josh Vinson picked off a pass and converted into a layup to put GCC ahead 70-67 with 38 seconds to go.

Bryant & Stratton missed a 3 and the Samsons got it to Vinson, who made a free throw with 12 seconds on the clock to make it 71-67 Gogebic, and that was the final margin.

Brandon Emery led GCC with 20 points, Voker had 18 and Vinson scored 10.

“I thought Brandon Emery was big, he had 20 points and really broke them down with dribble drives and penetration kicks,” Mackey said.

Trevor Paulus had 11 boards.

“He was really active on the defensive end, which was nice to see,” Mackey said. “Voker had a solid game.”

GCC (13-8) hosts the UW-Superior JV team on Wednesday.

Gogebic — Kyle Smith 2, Trevor Paulus 6, Davonte Williamson 6, Garfield Voker 18, Morgan Cox 2, Joshua Vinson 10, Brandon Emery 20, Lester Williamson 4, Denver Sharrow 3. FTs: 12-29. Fouls: 23. Fouled out: None. 3-pointers: Emery 2, D. Williamson 2, Paulus 1, Vinson 1, Sharrow 1.

Bryant & Stratton — Quetin Kendricks 14, Jake Nixon 17, George Schwartz 4, Marko Lazarevic 8, Keith Henderson 8, Diamante Freeman 2, Lewrenzo Byers 9, Nate Walker 3, Angelo Croft 2. FTs: 12-20. Fouls: 23. Fouled out: Walker. 3-pointers: Lazarevic 1.

GCC 31 71

Bryant & Stratton 28 67

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MILWAUKEE — The Gogebic Community College Lady Samsons had never played Bryant & Stratton College before but found out they can really put points on the boards as GCC dropped a 95-77 game to the private school from the Milwaukee area.

Coach Mark Movrich said a slow start put Gogebic in a hole they could not dig themselves out of.

"We just didn't seem to match their aggressiveness early on," Movrich said. "We didn't play hard at the beginning and they were coming up with the 50/50 balls. We were down 18 at the half and we got down by 24 points. They were in foul trouble and we cut the lead to 11 and we had plenty of time left. But we expended too much energy coming back. We had a bad stretch and we got down by 18 again and that's where it ended."

Movrich said giving up 95 points was just too much and the Bobcats scored 22 points off turnovers to GCC's six.

"Defensively, we needed some big plays and we didn't get them," Movrich said. "77 points is usually enough to get us a win but not tonight. Turnovers were part of it and turnovers lead to easy baskets."

On a positive note, the Lady Samsons got balanced scoring with four players reaching double figures. Maria Wiltzius topped GCC's scoring with 29 points, Lori Wardynski followed with 17 and Lexi Engler and Mary Saldana notched 13 points.

"Maria had a nice, all-around game and Mary followed up her solid performance on Wednesday with another good game," Movrich said. "She's a physical player who likes to mix it up and they made a run when she was on the bench with foul trouble."

Gogebic is now 9-10, while Bryant & Stratton is 12-8.

The Lady Samsons return home on Wednesday to play the UW-Superior JV at the Lindquist Center at 5 p.m.

Gogebic — Hallee Yon 2, Lori Wardynski 17, Lexi Engler 13, Mary Saldana 13, Maria Wiltzuis 29, Madeline Gabka 1, Donyai Thomas 2. FT's: 14-26, Fouls 21, Fouled out: none, 3-pointers: Wiltzius 5, Wardynski 2. .

Bryant & Stratton — Jazlyn Draker 19, Kiara Donaldson 40, Kyla Pitts 19, Ashley Williams 14, Gabby Norwood 4. FT's: 13-18, Fouls: 17, Fouled out: none, 3-pointers: Donaldson 3, Pitts 3.

Gogebic 17 34 56 77

Bryant & Stratton 24 52 72 95 .