No. 1 Ishpeming ends E-TC's season

By JASON JUNO

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BARAGA --- One of the first things people noticed when Ewen-Trout Creek came to town was their youth — after all, their starting lineup consists of three sophomores and two eighth graders.

Coach Jacky Besonen never accepted that easy excuse as they navigated the Copper Country Conference and its gauntlet of teams ranked in the top five in the Upper Peninsula. They added bigger schools, Houghton and Menominee, when openings popped up on their schedule.

“I knew they could be successful this year even though they were young,” Besonen said. “I kept telling them that — ‘I don’t care how old you are, you can be successful this year.”

And they were. After winning their side of the league, they kept it going in the tournament. They prevailed in a tough atmosphere to beat Ironwood for a district championship in their gym. They then avenged a regular-season loss to Lake Linden-Hubbell with a win in the first game of the regional.

It only ended when they ran into the No. 1 team in the state, Ishpeming, which put a stop to the Panthers’ 20-win season with a 70-42 in last week’s MHSAA Division 4 regional final.

There is some solace in knowing you got as far as you possibly could in any season and that is the case for the Panthers. Ishpeming won their first regional title in 50 years and they’re so good, they could come home from East Lansing this weekend with another championship trophy.

E-TC is going to be good for awhile with that young team; they might need to make more room in their trophy case for what’s to come.

“This is a great experience for them,” Besonen said. “For Emma (Besonen) and Irelynd (McGeshick), this is their second regionals in a row. Hopefully in their mind, they think, yeah, that’s what we do because I hope that’s what we do.

“I’m really impressed with the season and happy for them that they got this far. For the most part, they handled those situations pretty well for being so young.”

Nobody in Division 4 played the Hematites close. Baraga, which went to the state final last year and was ranked second in the U.P. this year, lost to them by 32 points while hosting the district final. Only Negaunee, which made the state semifinal in Division 2, beat them — and Ishpeming defeated them once.

It all starts with their pressure defense. It’s not easy to deal with in the first half — and E-TC stayed in the game into halftime like Carney-Nadeau did in the game before — but it amps up in the second half and that’s when they bury pretty much every one.

The Panthers trailed by 10, 32-22, at the half. Ishpeming scored the first 15 points of the second half, though, and it was done.

“That’s their pattern,” Besonen said. “That second half, they’re going to come even tighter and we’re tired. It’s definitely the tired factor. He’s deep, he can sub and we really can’t. That, I think, is the big key, you just get that physicality and it wears you down, wears you down.”

One of their top players, 6-2 sophomore Mya Hemmer, had three fouls in the first half. They can handle that, though, with their depth. They can be aggressive and physical on the press because foul trouble doesn’t make them so uncompetitive, like it does for a lot of Division 4 teams. They have 10 girls that go in and out.

“We’re going to keep the gas on and be extra aggressive, trying to get steals, sometimes they lead to fouls and sometimes they don’t,” Ishpeming coach Ryan Reichel said.

The Panthers didn’t cower, though. Ishpeming got 12 steals, but Emma and Bree Besonen didn’t make it easy on them.

“I gotta give a lot of credit to the Besonen girls,” Reichel said. “They went against some of the best defenders and they made us work for it. They should be very proud what they got with those two girls. They know how to compete.”

Coach Besonen gave Emma credit for playing through the flu — her Dad, assistant coach Brad Besonen, had a garbage can ready by the sideline. It slowed her down a bit, though.

“Would we win? No. Would she have a little more spark? Definitely. Being able to gut it out was huge for her. The rest of the girls, they just kept working hard,” she said.

Besonen still managed to score 10 points. Irelynd McGeshick led the Panthers with 14 points and 11 boards and Bree Besonen had 13 points.

Jenna Maki, a 5-10 senior, led the Hematites with 21 points and 11 rebounds. Hemmer had 13 and Jenessa Eagle, a 5-9 sophomore, had 12.

E-TC finished at 20-6 and Ishpeming enters Thursday’s state semifinal with a 26-1 record.

Ishpeming is doing all of this in their first year since moving down from Division 3 to Division 4 as their enrollment falls, although they’re much bigger than E-TC at 196 students compared to the Panthers’ 65. They play a schedule full of much bigger schools — they didn’t move from the West-PAC — and they have the depth a lot of bigger schools enjoy.

They only lost the one conference game — to Negaunee - and they navigated a good year for D-4 basketball in the U.P. with ease.

It’s been a dominant run.

“It’s special,” Reichel said. “This is a great group of kids. I love coaching them. It didn’t happen by accident. We traveled over 2,000 miles for team camps.”

Now they’re looking for their first-ever state title.

“Our goal is to win it,” Reichel said. “As the No. 1 team, that’s the only goal we had.”

E-TC --- Bree Besonen 13, Leona Schutz 2, Emma Besonen 10, Hannah Ferguson 3, Irelynd McGeshick 14. FTs: 17-20. Fouls: 10. Fouled out: None. 3-pointers: Emma Besonen 2, B. Besonen 1.

Ishpeming --- Jenna Maki 21, Addison Marton 8, Jenessa Eagle 12, Laynie Korpi 2, Kadie Kaukola 2, Payton Manninen 4, Lilly Swanson 4, Mya Hemmer 13. FTs: 9-12. Fouls: 22. Fouled out: Hemmer. 3-pointers: Marton 2, Eagle 2, Manninen 1.

E-TC 6 22 26 42

Ishpeming 16 32 56 70