Austin Collier passess off to teammate Aaron Pickvet for a fast-break basket in the first half of Monday's SSC victory.
Jason Jimenez had a big first half to help the Owls build a 29-22 lead at the break.
Brent Baker
Derek Welmers scored 19 points and wreaked defensive havoc to spark the Panthers in the second half.

STANDISH-STERLING - Mar. 5, 2007 - For a moment, it looked like Oscoda had North East Michigan Conference co-champion Standish-Sterling right where it wanted.

The Panthers,who trailed 29-22 at the half and were still down 37-33 midway through the third quarter, might have looked to be in trouble after leading scorer Ashton Gulvas picked up his fourth foul with 4:13 left in the third. But as it turned out, that turned out to be the beginning of all sorts of trouble -- for Oscoda.

With Gulvas on the bench, the Panthers, whose depth has been a strength all year, closed out the quarter with a 10-0 run to take the lead for good, and the air out of the upset-minded Owls' balloon. SSC pulled away to take a 64-45 victory in Monday's district tournament opener and will face Tawas Area on Wednesday.

"Our guards did a great job in the second half," said SSC coach Tom Murray. "Derek Welmers, Austin Collier, Justin Migut and Aaron Pickvet all played tremendous games. I'm real pleased."

Oscoda was able to get to the basket consistently through the first half as Jason Jimenez owned the baseline, Barak Henderson controlled the offensive glass and Adam Dettmer played his usual blue-collar game. Those three combined for all of Oscoda's first-half points and actually had all of the Owls' points until Mike Leveille's late 3-pointer.

With Gulvas in foul trouble through the entire game, SSC had trouble finding its rhythm in the first half, but turned up the pressure after halftime to take advantage of its 10-team rotation, which Oscoda doesn't have.

"We had a plan, and I thought for the most part it worked well," said Oscoda coach Scott Lueck. "At halftime we emphasized the need to control the tempo. We knew what was coming, but we weren't able to handle it well."

The Owls matched the Panthers basket for basket through the first part of the third quarter, but with SSC constantly pouring fresh bodies onto the floor, the Owls finally broke in the final 2:30 of the third quarter. Derek Welmers scored two baskets, Justin Migut had four points and Justin Reid scored off an SSC steal as the Panthers took control. SSC forced the Owls into 23 turnovers for the game.

"Welmers is just a great player," Lueck said. "I can't believe he scored (a game-high) 19 points; it didn't seem like he shot the ball.

"Still, it comes down to making shots. They did, and in the second half, we didn't."

"Scott did a phenomenal job with that group of kids," Murray said. "He did a great job of preparing them for us. They're pretty good and they got to the basket an awful lot in the first half.

"Once we were able to get the game up-tempo, though, we were able to wear them down."

Austin Collier added 11 points for SSC, which improved to 15-6.

Dettmer led the Owls (10-11) with 15 points, Henderson added 14 points and 16 rebounds, and Jimenez had 13.