History made for Petoskey girls basketball with first regional title since 1999
· Yahoo Sports
PETOSKEY — History making moments aren’t always known at the time.
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But, when they are, the good ones can be a heck of a lot of fun to celebrate.
Look no further than the Petoskey girls basketball right now. Over the past couple weeks, Petoskey has personified joy on the basketball court and the biggest party yet came on Thursday, March 12 at Traverse City Central.
Meeting Big Rapids in a Division 2 regional championship game, Petoskey’s girls wrote themselves into the PHS books by capturing the program’s first regional title in 27 years with a 62-50 victory.
“That was a fun game. It was so exiting,” Petoskey senior Leah Sulitis said afterward. “We haven’t won one of these since 1999 and we knew that this will be our legacy.”
The game was originally supposed to be played on Wednesday, though weather moved the matchup to Thursday in Gaylord. When Thursday came and Gaylord High School didn’t have power, the game was again moved, this time to Traverse City.
After using comebacks to pull off victories in the district title and regional semifinal wins, Petoskey (22-3) played like the dominant team throughout much of the night against Big Rapids (20-5).
Even as the Cardinals put on a full-court press in the second half and trimmed the Petoskey advantage down to four in the fourth, there was no panic.
“They’re just really composed,” Petoskey coach Brooke Carlson said. “We have great senior leaders and then we have some young talent as well. Those senior veterans just never let us get too far away from what we need to do.”
From the start of the season, through regionals now, the Northmen have shown a number of different ways of being able to attack teams.
On Thursday night, they leaned into the advantage they knew they had against Big Rapids, a talented guard heavy team.
Sulitis helped lead a dominant performance in the post, with 31 points coming between her, junior Julia Dieterle and her sister, freshman Ella Sulitis.
“We knew that they had their guard (Nuray Fricke) and they had a post but they weren’t pretty dominant,” Sulitis said. “So, me and my sister and Julia just thought we needed to lock in and be a presence.”
Leah and Julia combined for 13 points in the first half of a 26-22 halftime advantage for Petoskey, while Ella sat for a portion in foul trouble.
“We knew that our inside presence would be a big part of our game tonight and Leah just did an amazing job getting rebounds and putting them back up,” Dieterle said. “Our inside was playing well together, getting the ball to each other.”
In the second half, it was time to feed Ella, which Petoskey tried to do on what felt like every possession down the court.
That was essentially the gameplan.
“That’s what we said at halftime,” Carlson said, emphasizing getting the ball inside. “We said, ‘It’s not hard. Just please get to your spots and look to the high post. Look inside. It’s not hard.’ There was nothing special.”
While the plays drawn up weren’t special, the freshman center continues to play beyond her years and led with 16 points in the game, scoring 10 in the fourth alone.
Petoskey led 40-35 after three quarters, before Ella took off in the fourth and fellow freshman Elaina Flynn joined her, scoring nine of her 14 points in the final quarter. She went 6 for 6 at the free throw line alone.
Leah added 11 points, Lauren LaHaie scored 10 and Lyla Janes had seven.
The win for Petoskey (22-3) moves them into a Division 2 quarterfinal game on Tuesday, March 17 against Flint Powers Catholic (23-3), with a location not yet determined.
While she doesn’t know a lot about Powers just yet, other than they’re obviously good, Carlson is proud to be leading a group that’s put themselves in rare company in the state.
“There are only eight teams left in Division 2 and we’re one of them,” Carlson said. “I’m really lucky. They’re just a really special group. The girls, they need a little guidance, but they’ve got it figured out.”
Check back with the News-Review for more on the Petoskey girls and their postseason run.
Contact or send game stats/info to Sports Editor Drew Kochanny at [email protected]. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @DrewKochanny, and Instagram, @drewkochanny
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Petoskey girls keep celebrating with regional title over Big Rapids