EWEN -- Full house.

Two 20-plus point scorers.

Two great teams.

The much-anticipated matchup between Ewen-Trout Creek and Hurley lived up to the hype for three quarters.

After leading by just three to end the third quarter, the Panthers took control in the fourth and beat the Midgets 62-43 to stay undefeated at 3-0.

"That score wasn't indicative of how hard fought that game was," Hurley coach Gary Giancola said. "It was a great game, very competitive game."

Hurley had a chance to take the lead after Mike Leinon hit a shot while being fouled to tie the game 40-40 with 11.4 seconds to go in the third quarter.

Before the free throw, E-TC put Colin Ahlskog in the game to see if he could get the ball.

Leinon missed the free throw and the Panthers got the ball to Ahlskog, who buried the 3-pointer to bring E-TC's offense and the crowd back to life.

"He hit a big shot right there, giving us momentum going into the fourth quarter," E-TC coach Brad Besonen said. "We were really in a little funk there offensively."

The Panthers took control of the game in the fourth, outscoring Hurley 19-3 to end the game.

E-TC senior Tony LaPlant hit two free throws to go up five points to start the quarter and he followed with a great putback on the break. He sparked the fast break, tossed it to Paul Abramson, who missed it, and Tony trailed to put it in.

That put E-TC up 47-40. Hurley junior Daulton Levra made a shot, but the Panthers' Jeff Lindberg followed with a trey to put the Panthers up 50-42. A

12-1 E-TC run finished the game.

"It's a great outlook on the rest of the season after winning that game," Besonen said. "We can go a long way, if we do things correctly."

E-TC boxed out better and played good help-side defense in the fourth, Besonen said.

"Our fourth quarter was excellent," he said. "I think we did a great job of wearing them down, and our boys just came up huge and made great decisions."

Giancola said Ahlskog's three at the end of the third was huge.

"We went cold once we fell behind a little bit, and we starting pressing," Giancola said. "I felt if we would have got some kind of lead in the fourth quarter, we would have been in good shape."

LaPlant scored 22 while Levra finished with 21 points.

"Tony and Daulton, they both played very well," Besonen said. "Daulton hit some incredible shots throughout the whole game. We played good defense. He's just that good of an offensive player.

"Tony was himself, playing a great game all the way around. He definitely hit some big buckets for us when we were on that little roll."

Levra was hot in the first half keeping Hurley in the game as E-TC built seven-points, but couldn't hold them. But the Panthers held him to just five in the second half.

"They did a great job of jumping him on the screens," Giancola said. "The kids have to start showing the ability to dribble with that kind of pressure on them, so we can relieve some pressure from Daulton."

Hurley played hard, it just didn't shoot well, Giancola said.

"We wish we could play these guys again," Besonen said. "That is a good, good team right there. They're going to go a long way in the Wisconsin playoffs."

Besonen summed it up.

"If we played 10 times, one team might win six, the other might win four," he said.

"Or they might be 5-5. Two good teams."

E-TC travels to cross-county rival Ontonagon Jan. 8. Hurley (3-2) hosts the Gogebic Range Holiday Tournament, opening with Wakefield-Marenisco at 7:30 p.m. Friday.