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After an almost three-week break over Christmas and New Year’s, the Montcalm Community College women’s basketball team got back into action, with two road games in three days. 

The Centurions (1-8 overall) suffered a loss in both games, dropping an 87-31 game to Grand Rapids Community College Jan. 4, and losing to Kellogg Community College, 77-56, Jan. 6.  

With the team still playing with only eight players, the Centurions continue to struggle with keeping up with their opponents for 40 minutes, but, said MCC head coach Scott Pedigo, his team is still forging ahead looking for W’s. 

“Our goal for the rest of the season is to try to get better with conditioning, however, we don’t want to burn out too much, either,” Pedigo said. 

Against GRCC (2-6 overall), Pedigo said his team prepared for the Raiders’ starting five and their style of play, however, several players on the GRCC team did not play and adjustments by MCC had to be made on the fly. Coupled with poor shooting, Pedigo said it wasn’t the way he wanted his team to perform coming off a long break. 

“It was a tough one to get back into after break,” Pedigo said. “They have some better players. It was a matter of them playing well and we did not at all. We were missing easy shots. We just didn’t shoot well.” 

MCC shot 10-of-55 from the field (18.2%) compared to GRCC’s 46.3% shooting (38-of-82). 

The Centurions turned the ball over 22 times, which resulted in 24 points for the Raiders, who only turned the ball over seven times. 

GRCC also had the advantage in fastbreak points, outscoring MCC 18-0, and scored 56 of its 87 points in the paint to MCC’s eight. 

GRCC took control of the game early, going on a 22-0 run in the first quarter. MCC finally scored in the second quarter at the 8:45 mark on a two-point shot by freshman guard Makenna Rautio (Big Rapids, Mich.), who returned to the team after suffering an ankle injury before the holiday break.  

Freshman forward Kennedy Schilling (Flushing, Mich.) followed it up with another two-point bucket to make it 26-4 a minute later.  

MCC, however, would be outscored 24-8 in the second quarter and went into halftime down 46-8.  

The Centurions finally got things going in the fourth quarter, with Schilling knocking down a three-point shot at the 9:07 mark, making it 67-17. The two teams went back and forth, and though GRCC outscored MCC in the quarter again, the Centurions made it close, being outscored only by three, 20-17.  

Rautio led the Centurions in scoring with 15 points while Putnam finished with eight and Schilling with five points. Both Putnam and Rautio finished with seven rebounds to lead the team.  

Kellogg 77, MCC 56 

After a day’s rest, the Centurions were back at it, traveling to Battle Creek to go up against the Kellogg Community College Bruins (6-5) and fared much better than their game against GRCC. 

“I thought we played well,” Pedigo said. “Our low numbers on the bench hurt us over time and we struggled a bit in the first half, but we started catching on in the second half.” 

Pedigo was pleased to see Putnam rebound from poor shooting in previous games, as she finished with a game-high 27 points.  

“She was on a shooting slump for a while but it’s good to see she managed to get herself out of it in this game,” Pedigo said. “For a while, she was only getting three or six points a game, but now she’s dropping down the three-point shot again, so hopefully she’s back on track.” 

So far this year, Putnam is averaging 13.3 points a game and shooting a 33.9% clip from the three-point range. 

The Bruins managed to jump out to an 11-0 lead before MCC finally answered with a two-point bucket by Schilling. Putnam then made a layup on MCC’s next offensive drive, making it 13-4 with 4:30 to go in the opening quarter. 

Putnam made it 19-10 with a three-point bucket with 29 seconds to go, which finished out the quarter.  

Both teams clamped down defensively in the second quarter, with the Bruins outscoring the Centurions 14-9 to take a 33-19 lead at halftime. Freshman Emma Rewa (Greenville, Mich.) sunk two free throws with 13 seconds to go to finish out MCC’s first-half scoring. 

Pedigo has been praising Rewa’s performance all season and again against Kellogg, pointing out her consistency on defense and with rebounding. 

“She does a lot of things that don’t show up in the stat sheet,” Pedigo said. “She’s good at boxing out, she’s been good with rotating and she’s been a good outside defender. She got some big offensive rebounds in this game, too. She does things that just surprise you.” 

Kellogg came out of halftime shooting on fire, though MCC did its best to keep up. KCC’s Dayshauna Crowley pushed the Bruins’ lead to 20 with a jump shot at the 6:36 mark, making it 43-23. KCC continued to separate itself from MCC, pushing the lead to 52-26 after Crowley nailed a three-point shot, which forced Pedigo to take a time out. 

Despite falling behind, Putnam said she and her team keep their heads down and continue to fight. 

“As a team, we never give up and we always stick together,” she said. 

The Centurions kept fighting to come back, trying to chip away at the Bruins’ lead. Putnam’s three-point make at 1:35 in the third quarter made it 57-34, however, KCC outscored MCC 28-17, going into the final quarter leading 61-36. 

The Centurions were able to outscore the Bruins in the final quarter, 20-16, going 5-for-8 from the three-point line. 

Putnam finished with a game-high 27 points and nine rebounds. Schilling scored 10 points while Rautio and Rewa each had eight points. Rewa finished with eight rebounds, as well. 

With 14 games left in the regular season, Pedigo is hoping his team improves on cutting down turnovers and become a better transition team defensively. 

“We just need to do well with transition and take care of the ball and we can give ourselves a chance to win games,” Pedigo said. “We’re always going to be struggling with rotating out players due to a lack of depth, but I know we have some opportunities for wins going down the stretch.” 

UP NEXT:

The Centurions will then travel to Harrison to face Mid Michigan College at 5:30 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 15. On Saturday, Jan. 18, MCC will host Alpena Community College for Adopt-A-Classroom night. Game time is 1 p.m.