Game of the Week: Portland girls take down Lansing Catholic, capture district title

IONIA, Mich. (WILX) - A district title was on the line Friday night at Ionia High School between Portland and Lansing Catholic. Portland has been in that spot before, just last season winning the district finals and going on to win the Division 2 State Championship. The team wanted to do a repeat this year. After a tough first quarter, where the Raiders trailed 12-5, they figured it out and took the lead the rest of the way, winning 45-30 and capturing another district title.

“This is what these guys want, they wanted to win a conference championship, split it with Lansing Catholic. They wanted to win a district, you know you take it one step at a time,” Portland Head Coach Jason Haid said. “It’s too bad that someone’s season has to end tonight because it’s two really good teams, two top-five teams, but I’m really proud of our kids the way that we gutted that thing out.”

“It’s a surreal feeling. This is something we work for. We knew we wanted it really bad so it’s just a crazy feeling,” Portland senior Ava Guilford said.

“It feels great. Obviously we’ve played them twice already this season. We knew this one coming in was going to be the toughest one yet,” Portland senior Ashley Bower said. “But I thought we prepared well and just had a great overall game.”

“They’re a good team for sure. I just think we wanted it, we stayed focused, we practiced,” Guilford said. “They’re always a target on our schedule so we just had to get the job done.”

“Yeah we’re just going to continue to push and get better,” Bower said. “We want to win so we’re just gonna do everything we can to do that and I’m just excited to see what the rest of the season is like.”

“You want to be playing your best basketball right now as every coach would say. I truly believe we’re playing our best basketball right now and it’s obviously no better time,” Haid said. “We know moving into regionals, we haven’t really looked to see who we would play or what not, but I know there’s going to be some good teams waiting there. Everybody wants to try to knock us off, we’ve got a target on our back. We know that, they know that. So we’re just going to keep coming into practice and grinding it out.”

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