Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By JASON JUNO
Hurley — Hurley’s success against Range rivals continued into the 2025 portion of their schedule.
The Northstars beat Bessemer 60-44 victory Friday night after wrapping up 2024 with a victory at Ironwood. They can pull off a sweep of area teams with a win against Wakefield-Marenisco on Feb. 6.
Hurley won their fourth straight game after starting the year 1-2.
“We want to keep stacking good days on top of each other and I thought this was a pretty good day,” Hurley coach Mike Swartz said. “I thought it was nice to get a lot of guys some minutes. I thought we battled some adversity with foul trouble. Guys had to step up and I thought they did that.”
Logan Schilling played well in the second half after dealing with those first-half fouls. They also had to overcome an early injury to one of their top scoring options, Jack Rowe, who didn’t return.
Schilling ended up leading the Northstars with 13 points, Jeremiah Wallis scored 11 and Wyatt Hall had 10.
“I thought guys stepped up,” Swartz said. “I thought (Devin) Soltis had a really big game overall, did a good job attacking the basket under control. Schilling battled the foul trouble early in the first half and had a big second half for us.”
Bessemer stayed in the game in the first half despite playing the night before and missing all 11 free throw attempts. Hurley outscored Bessemer 9-2 to end the half with a 33-22 lead. The Speedboys cut the margin to seven, 37-30, in the second half, as Hurley struggled initially with a 2-3 zone. Wallis and Schilling both scored nine points in the second half as the Northstars figured it out.
“We were sloppy in the first four minutes against it, bad passes, weak passes,” Swartz said. “Not very crisp, but then we settled in and attacked it really well.”
Bessemer played well even though they were coming off a win over Wakefield-Marenisco the night before and Hurley came in fresh. The free throw shooting wasn’t good either night, but they didn’t make a single one Friday night, going 0 for 16.
“There’s never been a stat line where they won the game despite shooting 0 for 15 from the free throw line,” said Bessemer coach Richard Matrella, who thought his group played with Hurley, which he called a “nice, well-rounded team.”
“We just had too many times where we’d go to the free throw line and come away with nothing,” he said. “I thought we did a good job of getting to the basket early in the game, but when you’re not getting the payoff, eventually it gets frustrating because you see that (lead) grow over time and it’s really hard on a team.”
Bessemer’s Cayden Harju led all scorers with 17 points.
Hurley improved to 5-2 and Bessemer fell to 1-4.
Bessemer — CJay Wainio 2, Cayden Harju 17, Gus Matrella 6, Gabe Harju 2, Aiden Partanen 4, Matt Switzer 3, Leland Hollenbeck 4, Devin Carlson 6. FTs: 0-16. Fouls: 19. Fouled out: None. 3-pointers: Matrella 2, C. Harju 1, Switzer 1.
Hurley — Devin Soltis 9, Ty Hall 3, Jeremiah Wallis 11, Wyatt Hall 10, Jack Rowe 6, Brodie Erickson 1, Logan Schilling 13, Gavin Moore 7. FTs: 16-27. Fouls: 18. Fouled out: None. 3-pointers: Rowe 2, T. Hall 1, Wallis 1.
Bessemer 22 44
Hurley 33 60
