TAwas Area's Hope Kolts drives past Ogemaw's Keshia Allen during the Braves' 52-40 victory.
Colleen Wren scored 20 points, twice hitting back-to-back 3-pointers to get the Falcons back into the game.
Brent Baker
Molly Stoll defends Ogemaw's Kristi Killackey under the basket during Friday's contest.

TAWAS AREA - Feb. 8, 2008 - Ogemaw Heights did a much better job of hanging with Tawas Area's girls basketball team in the squads' second meeting of the season, but the end result was the same: a 52-40 Tawas victory that kept the Braves alone on top of the North East Michigan Conference.

An offensive funk at the end of the first half proved decisive as the Braves ran off a 19-4 run to take a 23-14 halftime lead. But that run came in response to a 10-0 surge by the Falcons that gave them a brief 10-5 lead, and in the third quarter Ogemaw pulled to within 26-22 before Tawas pulled away.

"We missed some inside shots early, but for the most part I thought we played well," said Tawas coach Todd Kaems. "Ogemaw played better, too. But we didn't turn the ball over as much and we had good shot selection. We just didn't make as many as we might have."

The Braves paid a lot of attention to Ogemaw's leading scorer, Ashley Thompson, siccing Michelle Revord on her and holding her to three points.

"Michelle did just an outstanding job," Kaems said. "We didn't do nearly as good a job on (Colleen Wren)."

Wren took advantage of the opportunities given her, drilling four 3-pointers on the way to a 20-point night, including back-to-back treys midway in the third quarter to cut a 10-point Tawas lead down to four.

"We played a lot better than we did the first time (against Tawas)," said Ogemaw coach Tim Hansen. "We've really been playing pretty well for the past couple weeks, other than one quarter up at Gaylord.

"They did a good job of defending Ashley, and we didn't get the screens set we need to to get her open. But Colleen took advantage of that.

"What can you say, though? They're 15-2 for a reason. Between the Gerow girl shooting it and their post players, and some of their other kids, they have a lot of different components."

Gerow scored seven points during a 10-4 Tawas run that got the lead back up to 38-28 at the end of the third quarter and led by 15 before Wren again hit back-to-back treys to make it 48-39 with 1:50 to go.

Wren fouled out moments later, and Ogemaw could get no closer.

Gerow nailed four 3-pointers of her own and scored a game-high 21 points, while the Falcons, who aren't blessed with a lot of height, struggled to offset the Braves' Rachel Adaline and Molly Stoll inside.

Hope Kolts added nine points for the Braves, with Adaline scoring eight. Tawas improved to 9-1 in NEMC play.

The Falcons fell to 8-9 (4-5).