Traverse City Record-Eagle

Sports

February 7, 2012

Big night looms in LMC title race

St. Francis travels to Boyne City, Elks host Grayling

By MIKE ECKERT meckert@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — All eyes will be on the Lake Michigan Conference tonight.

The top four basketball teams in the standings will square off in what should be a pivotal night in the league race.

"For sure," Elk Rapids coach Luke Johnson said. "Nothing will be decided because there's still a lot of season to go. But the winners will put themselves in a pretty good position."

Right now, St. Francis leads the league race at 8-0 with Grayling and Elk Rapids two games back. Boyne City sits in fourth at 5-3, but hosts the Gladiators.

"Their backs are against the wall," St. Francis coach Keith Haske said of the Ramblers, who let a lead slip away in the closing seconds in a 69-68 loss to Charlevoix on Friday. "They had plans to be conference champions. I'm sure we'll see their best effort."

Elk Rapids will host Grayling in the other big league game. When the teams met in December, the Vikings won 50-49.

"Our kids were obviously a little down when we lost that," Johnson said. "We were up 12 in the fourth quarter. We had our chances, but didn't capitalize. But that was a long time ago. They're a much different team now and so are we."

The winner of the game will stay in the league race, as both teams still have St. Francis left on their schedule.

The Elks are hoping playing at home will work in their favor. Elk Rapids is 4-0 at home this season and still has games there with Boyne City and St. Francis in the upcoming weeks.

"It's always nice to be able to play at home and have the crowd behind you," Johnson said. "We're fortunate our schedule worked out that way."

While Elk Rapids will be staying at home more often than not over the next few weeks, St. Francis is hitting the road. After Boyne City today, the Gladiators travel to Harbor Springs and Grayling. They also visit Elk Rapids on Feb. 21.

"We're looking forward to it," Haske said. "For us to grow, we need to go on the road and be in those environments. It's really about us getting better. Se we need to go to those places."

Also in league action tonight, Kalkaska is at Charlevoix while Harbor Springs visits East Jordan.

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