Little Chute hands Marine boys season-finale loss

LITTLE CHUTE, Wis. — The regular season ended with a thud for the Marinette boys basketball team on Thursday, as the Marines were trampled by Little Chute 65-37 in North Eastern Conference play.

Little Chute (11-7 NEC, 13-11 overall) raced out to a 37-14 halftime advantage before narrowly outscoring the Marines 28-23 in the second half.

Chase MacGregor was Marinette’s leading scorer with 13 points. Jordan Race and Max Jacobson both tacked on eight, Sam Sommerfeldt collected six and Lukas Peterson chipped in two.

Cooper Effa led the Mustangs with 13 points while Grant Hermus and Charlie VandenBurgt both finished with 12.

Thursday’s loss was Marinette’s six straight and a capstone to an often frustrating season for the Marines..

Marinette dropped four games in which it led at halftime. Nine of the Marines’ 20 losses were by 10 points or less.

Marinette finishes seventh overall in the NEC at 3-15 and is 4-20 overall entering the postseason.

Up nextMarinette: The Marines earned the No. 8 seed in the WIAA Division 2 Regional playoffs and will host No. 9 West Bend East (1-23 overall) on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.

Little Chute 65, Marinette 37Little Chute 37 28 — 65

Marinette 14 23 — 37

Marinette: MacGregor 13, Jacobson 8, Race 8, Sommerfeldt 6, Peterson 2

Little Chute: Effa 13, Hermus 12, VandenBurgt 12, Nolan Jakubek 6, Deyten Magnussen 6, Jacob Verhagen 5, Nehemiah Engle 4, Rashad Manns 4, Matthew Sullivan 3

Final North Eastern Conference standings

Fox Valley Lutheran — 18-0 NEC, 22-2 overall

Freedom — 15-3, 20-4

Clintonville — 13-5, 16-8

Little Chute — 11-7, 13-11

Waupaca — 10-8, 14-10

Wrightstown — 9-9, 12-12

Denmark — 7-11, 10-14

Marinette — 3-15, 4-20

Luxemburg-Casco — 2-16, 3-21

Oconto Falls —2-16, 6-18