Basketball Recap: La Porte Takes Loss Despite Strong Efforts from Nic Spence and Griffin Ott-Large

After a string of four wins, La Porte's good fortune finally ran out on Friday. They took a 74-63 hit to the loss column at the hands of the Michigan City Wolves. Despite running the score up even higher than they did in their prior game last Saturday (59), the Slicers still had to take the loss.

La Porte's loss came despite strong showings from Griffin Ott-Large and Nic Spence. Ott-Large went 11 of 23 en route to 26 points, while Spence dropped a double-double on 19 points and 12 rebounds. Ott-Large's evening made it six games in a row in which he has scored at least ten points. Another player making a difference was Sawyer Tonagel, who posted 11 points and seven boards.

Even though they lost, La Porte smashed the offensive glass and finished the game with 15 offensive boards. They easily outclassed their opponents in that department as Michigan City only pulled down eight offensive rebounds.

Leading Michigan City to victory were Taquerion Vanburen and Anthony Murphy. Vanburen dropped a double-double on 21 points and ten rebounds, while Murphy dropped a double-double on 24 points and ten boards. The dominant performance gave Vanburen a new career-high in points. The team also got some help courtesy of Keegan Cowgill, who earned seven points and six rebounds.

La Porte's loss was their first in the conference, dropping their conference record down to 2-1 and their overall record down to 11-5. As for Michigan City, the victory was the third in a row for them, bringing their record for this year to 8-6.

La Porte will venture away from home to face off against Crown Point at 7:00 p.m. on January 31st. As for Michigan City, they will challenge Hammond Morton at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday. Michigan City is strutting in with some offensive muscle as they've averaged 65.1 points per game this season.