MENOMINEE — Electricity coursed through a packed Menominee High School gym on Friday, as a raucous crowd gathered to watch the Menominee and Iron Mountain boys basketball teams lock horns for the MHSAA District 66 Championship for the fourth time in as many seasons.
And for the third consecutive season, the Maroons are District champions after Menominee sent the Mountaineers packing with a 51-49 victory.
Iron Mountain ends the season at 22-2 overall. Both of the Mountaineers loss came at the hands of the Maroons, with Menominee winning both contest by a total of four points.
“Tonight was a rock fight between two teams,” Menominee coach Sam Larson said. “It was a back-and-forth type of game and I’m just happy that we were able to make enough plays down the stretch to get the job done.”
Befitting of a matchup between two teams that know each other well, Friday’s District final came down to the waning seconds after Ian Marttila hit a reverse layup to put Iron Mountain ahead by two with 74 seconds left to play.
After Gerald Sampoll-Torress missed a pair of free throws that would have made it a two-possession game, Tanner Theuerkauf attacked the hoop for a reverse layup of his own, drawing a foul in the process before successful completing the and-1 to give Menominee a 50-49 edge with 47.4 remaining.
Eli Beal sank an insurance free throw with 3.5 ticks on the clock and Sampoll-Torres’s desperation heave clanged off the rim, as the Maroons held on for the two-point victory.
“I’m super proud of our kids for being able to come through because tonight was a great defensive performance by both teams and points were hard to come by,” Larson said. “We’re very fortunate that we were able to come out on top tonight.”
Iron Mountain (22-2) came out like gangbusters to begin the game, reeling off 14 unanswered points, all of them coming from close range, before Beal tipped in a putback bucket for Menominee’s first points of the evening.
Menominee (18-6) continued to claw back in the second quarter after a 3-pointer off Connor Coduti’s fingertips ignited a 9-0 run that allowed the Maroons to tie matters up at 26-26 entering halftime.
“We know that Iron Mountain is a very physical group and that they were going to come in and try to bring that physicality to impose their will on us, and for a quarter, they did just that,” Larson said. “I thought that our pressure was the counter to that in the second quarter, and it continued to bother Iron Mountain doing down the stretch.”
Iron Mountain regained the lead early in the third quarter thanks to a bucket by Oskar Kangas before pushing its cushion up to eight before Beal, Trevor Theuerkauf and Tanner Theuerkauf all scored to trim the Mountaineers’ lead to 41-38 entering the fourth quarter.
Beal knocked down a triple to give Menominee only its second lead of the night with 5:15 remaining until back-to-back layups from Martilla and Matthew Colavecchi put Iron Mountain back on top by two.
Trevor Theuerkauf responded with a layup to knot matters up at 47-47 with 3:03 left to play.
Kangas led all scorers with a game-high 15 points. Colavecchi was close behind with 14, Martilla pitched in 10, while Sampol-Toress and Brayden Kassin both added three.
Trevor Theuerkauf was Menominee’s leading scorer with 13 points with Tanner Theuerkauf nipping at his heels with 12. Beal tallied eight, Nathan Schultz picked up seven, Bardowski collected six and Coduti chipped in five.
Up next
Menominee: The Maroons face Jeffers (23-1) in the semifinals of the Division 3 Regionals, Tuesday in Marquette at 6 p.m.
“Jeffers is a team that can really space out the floor and shoot the ball,” Larson said. “We saw them a little bit over the summer, and we know that they’re going to test our defense to the extreme.”
Menominee 51-Iron Mountain 49
Menominee 6 20 12 13 — 51
Iron Mountain 14 12 15 8 — 49
Menominee: Tr. Theuerkauf 13, Ta. Theuerkauf 12, Beal 8, Schultz 7, Bardowski 6, Coduti 5; FTs: 8-12
Iron Mountain: Kangas 15, Colavecchi 14, Martilla 10, Sampol-Torres 3, Kassin 3, Evan Copley 2; FTs: 2-9
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