NEGAUNEE — Iron Mountain senior Foster Wonders has developed a reputation the last couple of years for being one of the best players in the Upper Peninsula and he definitely put on a show Thursday night.

Wonders finished with 34 points as the Mountaineers rolled past Negaunee 67-24. IM got a little payback as the Miners foiled its hopes for a second consecutive perfect regular season last season.

Mountaineers head coach Bucky Johnson praised Wonders, but he also felt his team’s defense was the story of the game as IM clamped down on the Miners all night long.

“He had a great game tonight, great game,” Johnson said.

“He was smooth and he just had a great game. But I thought other than that offensively, the story of the game was our defense tonight.

“We know Negaunee is a patient team.

“We know they want to hold the ball and we tried to take them out of their comfort zone as far as running offense, running offense, running offense, and we were able to do that after we made some baskets and extended the court.

“And I think that kind of bothered them a little bit.

“We had 17 steals. We only turned the ball over four times.

“I believe we outrebounded them. So just an overall good game against a Negaunee team.

“We have a lot of respect for Negaunee and their program. Coach (Dan) Waterman is a heck of a coach.

“They love their basketball up here and we’re just happy that we came away with a victory tonight.”

IM jumped out to a 7-0 lead, but Negaunee cut its deficit to four at 12-8 thanks to back-to-back buckets by Gerald Johnson.

However, Wonders made a layup and beat the buzzer with a triple to give the Mountaineers a 17-8 lead going into the second.

That’s when IM started to pull away. A 10-0 run started by a trey from Ricky Brown got the Mountaineers’ advantage up to 30-9.

Negaunee started to fight back though and a jumper from Will Luke made it 30-16 IM at the half.

Luke led the Miners with nine points.

IM put the game away in the third quarter. After a outback by the Miners’ Eli Luokkala, the Mountaineers busted loose on a 15-0 surge to go up 45-16 with nine of the points coming from Wonders.

Waterman was unavailable for comments following the game.

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.