By John Raffel
Correspondent
MCBAIN – The Highland Conference boys championships belongs outright to the McBain Ramblers.
The Ramblers clinched a title tie on Feb. 17 at Houghton Lake with a 72-42 win. On Monday of this week, the Ramblers clinched it out right with a 70-41 win at Pine River 70-41.
The wins put McBain at 14-1 in the Highland and 16-4 overall with two regular season games to play.
Against Houghton Lake, Evan Haverkamp had 18 points, Ben Rodenbaugh had 15, Braylon Pace had 12. Nathan Koetje had seven.
“It was a good game overall since we were able to play everybody and give everybody some minutes,” McBain coach Bruce Koopman said. “We were a little flat early. We were down 16-14 at the end of the first quarter. We weren’t playing a lot of defense. We righted the ship and took off from there. We had a big game on Tuesday (over Maple City Glen Lake).”
Against Pine River, McBain and quarter leads of 17-13, 35-16 and 50-30.
Haverkamp had 22 points, Ben Rodenbaugh 12, Kalvin Mcgillis had seven.
“This game locked the conference up outright for us, so we don’t share with anybody,” Koopman said. “We’re Highland Conference champions, which is always goal No. 1 to win the league. I think we’re playing pretty well right now. We have a nice balanced attack. I’d like to see us get off to a little better start.
“We’re trending in the right direction.”
Austin Dean and Xander Martin led Pine River with 11 points apiece.
“McBain is on top of our league for a reason,” Pine River coach Brian Goodenow said. “Their size just killed us. Evan got second and third shot opportunities way too often.”