EAST LANSING — Lake Leelanau St. Mary fought back from a 17-point deficit to tie Ewen-Trout Creek in the fourth quarter in the Div. 4 state semifinals, but the Eagles fell short of winning, 62-56, on Thursday at the Breslin Center.
The Panthers held a 37-22 lead at halftime. They pushed their lead to 17 at the 1:55 mark in the third, but St. Mary ended the quarter on a 6-0 run to only trail, 48-37. They added another three to start the fourth to cut the deficit to 48-40. They eventually tied the game at 56 with 2:02 to go thanks to a layup by Dylan Barnowski, but Ewen-Trout Creek scored the remaining points.
“We were down 18 in the second half in our district game. We were down 12 points in the regional final against McBain NMC with less than five minutes to go and came back and got that one. They just have no quit in them,” St. Mary head coach Matt Barnowski said.
Shawn Bramer led St. Mary with 25 points, while August Schaub had 14 and Barnowski had 10. Kelsey Jilek had 19 points for the Panthers, and Jaden Borseth added 18 points including four of the last six points of the game.
“We’ve worked since we were little boys just to get here. It brings the community together and I don’t know, it’s hard losing like this but we worked. We did our best,” Schaub said.
The Eagles graduate four seniors from a team that went 21-5, made their first state semifinal appearance in program history and won their first regional title since 1950. Barnowski and Bramer, who both averaged more than 20 points per game this season, will be seniors next year.
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