Tuesday Night Hoops action

Harbor Beach's seven-game win streak came to an end as the Pirates lost to Reese 59-45 tonight.
The Rockets defense was the story of the night. Harbor Beach coach Ron Wruble explained that his team isn't used to facing that intense of a "D" and it frustrated them.
It was a struggle all night for the Harbor Beach offense, who were held scoreless for the first 4:24 of the first quarter until Tom Sorenson connected on a pair of free throws to break ice.
Sorenson was the offensive star of the game for the Pirates, scoring a team-high 14 points. Not bad for a guy who averaged less than two ppg in the regular season and had a previous high game of five points vs. Sandusky.
He will be one of just four players (all juniors) who will potentially return from the post-season roster as the Pirates lose nine players.
Of those nine, none will be more missed than Kevin Ginther, who averaged over 19 ppg during the regular season and shot around 73 percent from the line.
When the Thumb Sportswriters Association holds it meeting tomorrow and votes on our All-Thumb teams, Coach of the Year, Team of the Year, and Player of the Year in basketball and volleyball, he will be getting my nod in hoops for bets player.
Each week in our three papers, to supplement our scoring leaders, we had our "Power 10". This list was comprised by giving points for how players fared in categories of scoring, free throw percent, three-pointers per game, and best game. Players were awarded 10 points for first (15 for scoring as there were 15 players listed), nine for second, etc.
Needless to say, Ginther finished on top of that list every week.
Other key losses from this year will be Darren Essenmacher, who emerged as the Scottie Pippen to Ginther's Jordan this season. The two provided a very formidable one-two punch, one of the best in the area.
Perhaps the player I'm saddest to see go is Alex Titus, a senior who injured his knee late in last Friday's win over Marlette that helped 'Beach win a league title.
Titus was Harbor Beach's spark plug. He was one of their top long rebounders, a good defender, and most importantly brought a lot of energy on the court with him. He was the heart and soul of this team in many ways.
It's too bad for him personally that he had to spend his final game of his high school basketball career on the bench, but is also was too bad for the team. What Titus brought every game is what the Pirates were sorely missing against the Rockets.
As for Reese, I still don't know how to feel about them. Even in a convincing win (scorewise), I was somewhat impressed, but am not completely won over yet.
By the way, I saw Bad Axe coach Bob Breault and several of his players at the game amongst the other dignitaries (Dick Holdship, Curly Messing, Caseville coach Jim Quinn, and USA coach Mark Gainforth looking like a Reese fan in his CMU gear).
I think I'm going to start calling Bob the "professor". At several points in the game, I saw him sitting near a specific player and pointing things out to them. While I couldn't hear what they were saying, I imagine Breault was priming them for Thursday's game, which should be a doozy.
I'm sticking with my pick of the Hatchets to win that as well as the entire District.
I'll be back tomorrow night after the game to share my thoughts. Feel free to post your thoughts, predictions... Just post (and tell a friend)!