By Journal Sports Staff

ISHPEMING — While Ishpeming couldn’t score in the final 2 1/2 minutes, neither could Westwood.

That allowed the Hematites to take a 36-35 high school boys basketball victory at the Patriots’ gym on Friday night.

Westwood had built a 26-17 halftime lead before Ishpeming narrowed the margin to 29-25 entering the fourth quarter.

Ishpeming evened the score several minutes into the final quarter, according to Hematites new head coach Anthony Katona, and had a 36-34 lead with about 2 1/2 minutes left.

That’s when IHS’ Evan Gravedoni was called for a technical foul on a loose ball, but the Pats’ Nathan Beckman made just one of the two foul shots to pull his team within one.

Each team had a number of possessions after that, but nobody could get another point added.

Beckman led all scorers with 20 points, while Hart Holmgren paced the winners with 13 points.

Ishpeming won the JV game.

Petoskey 63, Marquette 47

At the Petoskey Invitational, 11 Redmen scored with Joe Ostrowsky and Raphael Millado each netting nine points.

“It’s going to be the story of our year,” MSHS coach Brad Nelson said. “We’re young, but we have a lot of guys who can play.

“We’ll often run guys, four or five at a time, for a few minutes, then send the next group in.”

Petoskey led 19-16 after one quarter, 33-28 after two and 48-36 after three.

Marquette plays its second game at the event at 1 p.m. today, facing Traverse City West.

L’Anse 55, Houghton 37

At L’Anse on Thursday, the Purple Hornets did something in their season opener they couldn’t do all of last year — win a game in the regular season. They earned their lone win last year in the district tournament.

So the debut of head coach Kyle Koski was a rousing success as sophomore Logan Fish scored 14 of his game-high 17 points in the first half of this West PAC game. He also had 11 rebounds and five assists.

Another sophomore, Louis Bogda, added 13 points, as did senior teammate Brandt Tembreull.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee with contributions from the Houghton Daily Mining Gazette. Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.