(Todd Rose/Daily Press photo) Zach Person (24) of Kingsford shoots over Gladstone’s Hunter Potier (52) Thursday night in Gladstone.

GLADSTONE — Kingsford held off Gladstone for a 48-44 Great Northern Conference boys basketball victory Thursday.

“I’m just extremely proud of the way we played as a team,” said Kingsford (5-2) coach Dan Olkkonen. “We faltered a little bit down in Menominee (on Monday). Our whole mantra is sticking together. We have to stick together and be a better team before we can think of the x’s and o’s of winning. I’m proud of them and they did a good job.”

At the start of the second half, Gladstone (4-3) held the lead 30-28. During the third quarter, they managed to hold on to it — aside from a brief 20 seconds that Kingsford led 31-30 off a three from Andrew Paupore — until about the two-minute mark. That’s when shots started going in for the Flivvers.

With one minute left in the third, Hunter Bilgreen put up a two to tie the game 40-40. Danny Weber followed that up with his own two for Kingsford to take the lead 42-40 as time expired in the quarter.

The fourth quarter saw little scoring, with Gladstone putting up four points and Kingsford six.

With about 4 seconds left in the game, the Flivvers led 46-44 as Nick Nora was inbounding the ball on Gladstone’s end of the court. Under pressure, he called a timeout, the last one for the Flivvers. On the next attempt, his pass bounced out of bounds.

Ultimately, the Braves couldn’t capitalize.

“That’s the learning experience,” said Olkkonen. Despite the late-game hiccups, he praised Nora’s performance.

“I thought he did a really good job,” he said. “(He was) getting some points for us and really distributing the ball. Defensively, I thought he did a nice job on (Cam) Ballard … he even had seven or eight rebounds.”

Olkkonen gives the credit for the win to the team as a whole.

“I give it to our team, this win, and our bench,” he said. “For not having a crowd in here, our bench created more noise than they ever have … It was a great team victory for everyone in the game or on the bench.”

Nora led the Flivvers in scoring with 17 points. Zach Person had 10.

Braves coach Mike Cretens was blunt with his assessment of the loss.

“The ball didn’t go in the hoop today,” he said. “We shot 13 of 51 from the field today. We’ve been averaging 70 points a game, and we scored 44 tonight.”

Ballard put up 14 points for the Braves and Rane Castor 11.

Kingsford also won the JV game 60-49 while Gladstone won the freshmen matchup 49-26.

Both teams are in action tonight with Kingsford hosting Marquette and the Braves taking on rival Escanaba in Escanaba.

Kingsford 16 12 14 6 — 48

Gladstone 13 17 10 4 — 44

Kingsford — Nora 17, Person 10, Bracket 7, Weber 4, Meneguzzo 4, Paupore 3, Bilgreen 3; F: 12; FT: 3-8; Fouled out: None; 3-point field goals: Paupore.

Gladstone — Ballard 14, Castor 11, Potier 7, Polley 5, Dowsey 4, Hughes 3; F: 16; FT: 5-6; Fouled out: None; 3-point field goals: Hughes