HALE - Dec. 5, 2006 - Both Oscoda and Hale staged comebacks in Tuesday's opening-night contest, but the Owls managed to hold off the Eagles' fourth-quarter run to take a 66-60 victory.

"It was quite a chess match," said Oscoda coach Scott Lueck. "I was very excited that our kids responded after Hale came all the way back."

Oscoda led 30-26 at the half, but scored the first nine points of the second half to go up 39-26.

"We had the first possession of the half, but tried to make the hard pass instead of the easy one," said Hale coach Rich Reilly. "We had a couple more turnovers and all of a sudden we were down."

The Eagles battled back to eventually take a brief fourth-quarter lead.

"Hale made a great run with some great defense and shooting," Lueck said. "We were able to get some key baskets and rebounds at the end and closed the game with a few free throws."

Barak Henderson led the Owls with 21 points, with many of the baskets coming off of offensive rebounds.

"We really had trouble blocking him out," Reilly said. "He's a nice player, but we didn't do ourselves any favors either."

The Eagles had 16 turnovers in the game, fewer than they typically made in the past several seasons, but managed just 14 defensive rebounds.

"It's hard to win when they get so many second chances, especially with a 6-6 kid under the basket," Reilly said. "For an opening game, though, it wasn't bad. I told the kids we played well enough to win, but we also played just well enough to lose."

The Eagles started out on fire in the first quarter, but the Owls came back to take a four-point halftime lead.

Ryan Miller led all scorers with 24 points, while Ty Allen, Eric Turland and Zach Putnam each had 10 points for Hale (0-1). Putnam added 11 rebounds and Allen had three 3-pointers.

Jason Jimenez added 13 points for Oscoda (1-0)