( Todd Rose/Escanaba Daily Press photo) North Central’s Luke Gorzinski (11) drives past Munising’s Alex Vanzandt (24) on Wednesday in Powers.

POWERS — A big second quarter made the difference down the stretch for the North Central Jets Wednesday night as they defeated the Munising Mustangs 59-48 in Powers.

Entering the second, the Jets led 13-12 with things reasonably even-keeled between the North Central and Munising teams. However, North Central opened up its attack outscoring the Mustangs 22-11 in the quarter to head into the locker room leading 35-23, a lead that would remain until the end of the game.

Jets coach Mike Malone said it all boiled down to excellent defensive play.

“That quarter, we played some of the best defense I think we’ve ever played in all four years,” Malone said. “Our help, rotation, our help down and secondary help, the defensive core, they played as a unit. For a full quarter, they played as a complete unit, getting hands in the passing lanes and communicating.

“I am just super, super happy with that quarter of basketball and the whole half. The first half was really good.”

A nine-point run by the Jets from 5:28 remaining to 3:22 in the second quarter helped bolster the team’s lead as they pushed a two-point margin to an 11-point one with seven points from Luke Gorzinski and two from Bradey Anderson.

Gorzinski and Anderson were the top two scorers for the Jets with 21 and 17 points, respectively.

Collin Cordy (9), Connor Florenski (8) and Jesse Sampson (4) also scored in the game.

For the Jets (15-2) to be able to defeat the Mustangs (14-2), it feels “fantastic,” said Malone.

“To play that level of basketball at this time of the year, that’s exactly what we want,” he said. “We want to continue to build on it. So, now we’re going to go watch the film, look at all of our miscues and try to play even better our next game.

“If we can put it together a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better, and play our best basketball in March, I think we can win a district and possibly a regional.”

The Mustangs had even scoring, with Cully Trzeciak (9), Jesse Duran (9), Hayden Rockhill (8), Drake Morrison (8), Carter Kienitz (7), Alex Vanzandt (4) and Trevor Nolan (3) all earning points.

Munising head coach Terry Kienitz also looked to the second quarter and the team’s turnovers as the difference in the game.

“Definitely the second quarter when they pulled away from us (was the difference),” Kienitz said. “Against a good team, on their court, it’s hard to get that back. Our turnovers, we had way too many turnovers. A lot of them weren’t even forced turnovers, but I’ll give North Central’s defense credit, they played well today.”

Since the outset of the season, coach Kienitz and his team have had this game marked as a test of how they fare against their possible postseason opponents.

“It was one of those games we had circled on our calendar,” he said. “We wanted to see where we are at. We played Rudyard earlier in the year, but we weren’t really 100 percent for that game. This was the next game on the schedule we had circled for as far as seeing where we are at.

“Now, we really know what we need to get better at, and we see them again next week. That’s the good thing.”

While the Mustangs and Jets meet again on March 3 in Munising, both teams are in action before that.

North Central will host rival Bark River-Harris Friday night, while the Mustangs host the Manistique Emeralds.

Todd Rose is a sports writer for the The Daily Press in Escanaba and can be reached at trose@dailypress.net.