JoBurg girls get massive win over St. Mary, open SVC title race heading into final week

JOHANNESBURG ― The packed crowd, a raucous environment and all that came with the Johannesburg-Lewiston boys win over Gaylord St. Mary on Thursday, Feb. 22 made that game one of the biggest events in JoBurg athletics in the past two seasons.

Apparently, that was just a warm-up for an even bigger girls basketball matchup one night later.

Johannesburg-Lewiston hosted the Ski Valley Conference-leading Gaylord St. Mary girls basketball team on Friday, Feb. 23, hoping for revenge after a blowout loss at GSM back in January to keep them alive in the SVC title race. Thankfully for the Cardinals and head coach Ryan Marlatt, that's exactly what they got, pleasing the packed Snowcoming crowd with a 44-33 victory over the Snowbirds to pull even with GSM in the conference standings.

Here are the key takeaways from a monumental win for the Cardinals.

JoBurg defense flips the script on GSM

During the first meeting between JoBurg and GSM, the young Cardinals had almost no success breaking that aggressive Snowbirds press. That resulted in a lot of turnovers and easy baskets in transition for the Snowbirds' big three of Kaylee Jeffers, Payton Glasby and Emery Blust, culminating in a 45-18 blowout loss.

Coach Marlatt knew his team could fare better against the press after seeing it once before, but he probably didn't expect his defense to step up the way it did.

JoBurg started the game on an 8-0 run, using early GSM turnovers to spark transition buckets of their own. Because of the aggressive, trapping style that GSM likes to run, it works better when they can set it up off of a made basket. However, made baskets were much harder to come by thanks to the Cardinal defense, and that allowed JoBurg to play within their game plan on offense more often than not.

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Marlatt makes POY case

Big-time players make big plays in big games.

Jayden Marlatt proved once again why she has been Joburg's big-time player for the past four years.

Marlatt led all scorers with 20 points, nine of them coming in the fourth quarter as JoBurg pulled away at the free-throw line. She was also the most effective ball handler when GSM did get the press set up, helping avoid turnovers and get easy transition buckets.

A Ferris State softball commit and a decorated volleyball player, Marlatt is making the case that she is also the SVC's top basketball player in her final year on the court.

SVC race wide open in final week

The JoBurg win (15-5, 11-3 SVC), their tenth in a row, and GSM loss (13-7, 12-3 SVC) complicate the Ski Valley title race heading into the last week of the regular season.

Inland Lakes (14-5, 12-2 SVC) is now alone atop the standings, with GSM and JoBurg trailing them with three losses. All three teams have conference games left to play, including a monumental matchup on Tuesday, Feb. 27 between Inland Lakes and GSM.

If the Snowbirds beat the Bulldogs, a three-way conference title split between IL, GSM and JoBurg would be the most likely outcome, while an Inland Lakes win would almost certainly wrap up sole possession of the title for the Bulldogs.

Contact GHT Sports Editor Dylan Jespersen at Djespersen@gaylordheraldtimes.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @dylanjespersen, and Instagram, @dylanjespersen

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Johannesburg-Lewiston girls basketball beats Gaylord St. Mary, opens Ski Valley title race