But Kingsford senior sharpshooter Talia Wallis buried her fifth 3-pointer of the night and then fellow senior Abby Terrian banged home another shot from deep to kickstart the Flivvers on a 17-0 run to send Kingsford on its way to a 49-31 decision over the Mountaineers at Kingsford High School.

“I thought those threes were huge in the third period, they allowed us to create some separation,” Kingsford coach Jon Lorenzoni said. “I thought Iron Mountain played hard, it was just we had some girls make some plays in the second half.”

Wallis was the leader in that respect, finishing with a game-high 20 points. Junior Laura Bracket added nine points and senior Paige Olsen had five for the Flivvers (2-3).

On the other hand, the Mountaineers (1-4) continued to struggle offensively, scoring 31 points for the second consecutive game. Through five games, Iron Mountain is averaging 37 points per game.

Iron Mountain’s Annslee Runsat (22) battles Flivver cager Laura Bracket (12) for a rebound.

“I thought we started to rush some shots and weren’t patient enough,” Mountaineers coach Karen Ellis said of the key stretch in the game. “I think we just ran out of energy.”

Iron Mountain junior Ellison Powell hit a pair of free throws to pull her team within 29-22 with 3:53 remaining in the third quarter. About a minute later, she scored an old-fashioned three-point play off her own rebound to cut the gap to four.

But Zoie Geronimi sank a layup in the press break when the Mountaineers went diamond-and-one in the fullcourt. Shortly later, the Flivvers began to make Iron Mountain pay for the holes in their alternating zone defense.

“I thought we had open looks in the first half, it was just that shots weren’t falling,” Lorenzoni said. “Point-blank shots. There were times I felt we got sloppy with our passes here and there, but I thought our shot selection was good tonight and I thought we did a nice job offensively at times.”

And of course, no Kingsford-Iron Mountain game goes by without mention of the matchup between neighbors.

Kingsford’s Talia Wallis (11) comes up empty-handed when trying to drive the lane against a bevy of Iron Mountain defenders, including Chloe Maycroft (24), in a varsity hoops clash between the two squads Monday.

“It’s a rivalry game, you’re going to be nervous, you’re going to miss some of those shots, I get that,” said Lorenzoni, who praised junior Elaina Bortolini’s spark off the bench in the third quarter. “But we did our job in the third period and we got our separation. It’s still a work in progress, but I’ll take the result in a rivalry game like this.”

Iron Mountain was led in scoring by Ashlyn Bal and Annslee Runsat, who scored seven points each.

Jerry DeRoche can be reached at 906-774-2772, ext. 247, or jderoche@ironmountaindailynews.com.