IRON RIVER — Sometimes, early-season prep basketball games can be ragged. Players begin to work themselves back into condition and regain their shooting and ball-handling touches and coaches start to acclimate new varsity players into their team structure.

However, there are exceptions to that — December games that bring out the best in what high school basketball can offer. That’s what happened on Friday night when the West Iron County girls hosted the Houghton Gremlins.

The two West Pac Conference clubs went at each other for 36 minutes. The Gremlins built a nine-point lead early in the third quarter only to see the Wykons respond by taking a five-point lead midway through the fourth.

Houghton answered with an 8-0 run and appeared to have the game won. But West Iron senior Katelyn Smith buried a 3-pointer from the right corner at the buzzer to send the game, fittingly, to overtime.

There, the Gremlins outplayed the Wykons and left Charles Greenlund Gymnasium with a 49-43 victory.

“For us to get down (27-18) in the third quarter against a really good Houghton team, we could have packed it in,” WIC coach Eric Shamion said. “But the kids hit a couple threes, especially Katelyn Smith who got hot, and we got right back into the game and it was a fun Friday night of basketball.”

“I (agree with that),” Houghton coach Julie Filpus said. “I think kids stepped up and hit big shots and both teams worked really hard on defense.”

The Gremlins (3-1) took an 8-4 lead before the Wykons (1-2) forged a tie on buckets by senior wing Rowyn Fiszer and Smith. Leading 11-10 heading into the second period, Houghton forced West Iron into some tough shots and held the hosts to six points to take a 22-16 lead into the halftime break.

The Gremlins did that with standout senior Eva Gerard, who sat out all but 90 seconds with two fouls.

“Through three games, Eva’s probably averaging in the low 20s (points per game),” Filpus said. “She’s a big part of our offense. And we tell our players that she draws double teams and so we had to figure out how to score some points with her on the bench.”

Gerard finished the game with only nine points.

WIC senior post Sidney Storti was tasked with being the front line of defense against the versatile and powerful Gerard and performed well.

“I thought she did a great job on Gerard, who is probably going to be an all-U.P. caliber kid,” Shamion said.

The Gremlins received offensive assistance mainly from guard Ellie Hainault. The sophomore scored six points in the second frame to help her team build its lead and then produced 10 more in the third quarter on her way to a game-high 21.

Still, the Wykons (1-2) had a fight-back in them on Friday night. Staring at a 27-18 deficit with under four minutes left in the third, Smith got hot. The diminutive guard knocked down consecutive treys to quickly slice the Houghton lead to three.

Hainault splashed a triple and Gerard sank a layup in the final 1:43 of the stanza but Storti helped her team stay close with two hoops as the Gremlins took a 32-28 edge into the fourth.

Starting the fourth, West Iron hit Houghton with a 10-0 burst to go up by five. Freshman guard Bristol Shamion recorded five points, including a 3-pointer as the Wykons forged a 36-33 lead.

She also connected with Storti on a screen-roll which showed the marks of her growing ability to make plays for her teammates.

“Being a freshman playing varsity ball and running the point, her decision making is going to get better,” her father and head coach said of his daughter who tallied 13 points in the game. “She makes some mistakes, but there’s times when I see there’s potential with her.”

Gerard broke the Wykons’ run with three free throws before Hainault sank her third 3-pointer of the game to tie the score.

Houghton junior guard Jacey Sleeman sank two free throws and sophomore Ruby Zawada hit one to give the Gremlins a 41-38 advantage with under a minute to play.

But with under five seconds left in regulation, Smith took an inbounds pass in the deep corner and buried a triple as time ran out to tie the game.

Smith struggled with her shot early in the game, but sank four triples in the second half to spur her team.

“She had that look in her eye,” Coach Shamion said. “She had some open looks in the first half and couldn’t buy a bucket, but then boy did she heat up and we needed it.”

Smith added an up-and-under layup to put the Wykons up 43-41 to begin the overtime, but West Iron did not score over the final 3:38 of the game.

Meanwhile, junior Romi Mattson hit a driving layup, Gerard scored in the post, Sleeman sank three more free throws and Hainault split a pair to lift Houghton to the victory.

While the teams played to a standstill until overtime, the Gremlins had a big edge at the free-throw stripe. Houghton sank 13 of 21, while West Iron shot just two and made both.

Filpus expressed appreciation for West Iron’s play on both sides of the court afterwards.

“We had some kids who got tight and are better offensive finishes than we saw, but credit West Iron County’s defense.

“(And) they know who their weapons are. Some kids are good at attacking and some kids are good at spotting up for a three. I just thought they had a game plan and they did a nice job of executing.”

On the other side, Coach Shamion praised his kids for their resilience.

“With this team, because it’s only the third game of the season, I kind of don’t know exactly what they’re going to be. But they showed me a little of themselves tonight. They took a punch and they punched back and I’m proud of them for it.

WOLVES 54, NORDICS 34

CARNEY — No matter where you’re at in the season, back-to-back games are hard for any high school basketball team.

The North Dickinson girls varsity basketball team found that out firsthand on Friday, as it went to Carney and faced off with the Wolves (1-3, 1-0) in an Skyline Central Conference clash.

The Nordics (2-2, 0-1) started slow and couldn’t recover as they fell to Carney, 54-34.

“We didn’t show up in the first half,” North Dickinson head coach Kirk Mattson said. “No intensity, no communication, no emotion. Don’t know if it was because it was our third game this week with back-to-back games on Thursday and Friday but the first half killed us.”

The Nordics scored nine points in the first half while the Wolves notched 32 points.

Junior Raina Ledzian led North Dickinson with nine points.

The Nordics also received contributions from Jessica Harwath (3 points), Alyson Steinbrecher (4 points), Ava Oman (3 points), Lauren Jungwirth (5 points), Aubrey Applekamp (4 points) and Aunika Lindholm (6 points).

North Dickinson returns to action at home on Tuesday against Bessemer.

Daily News sports editor Sean Chase contributed to this report.