Thursday night’s boy’s basketball game between the Houghton Gremlins and the Calumet Copper Kings was pretty straightforward.

The Gremlins simply outplayed the Copper Kings for the 52-32 win.

“I thought we did a great job on defense tonight,” stated Houghton head coach Jared Lawson. “It made up for the loss we had earlier this week in Marquette. We did a good job of contesting their shooters.

The Gremlins (6-7) and the Copper Kings (2-6) bounced out to a 7-7 tie in the opening minutes. Houghton’s Brad Simonsen then put the punctuation point on the closing minutes with a two-handed slam dunk to end the first with a 13-9 Gremlins lead.

“As a coach I have never seen that,” Lawson said. “It was a phenomenal throwdown with a lot of power.”

Houghton widen the lead to nine at the half-way mark. The Gremlins outscored the Copper Kings 12-5 in the second to make the score 25-14.

Calumet’s head coach Frank Bonacorsi was pleased with his team’s effort on defense in the first two periods.

“The kids played good defense in the first half,” he said. “I was also happy with the way the kids moved the ball. Our shooting was lacking.”

The Copper Kings were one and done from the floor with Brad Simonsen of the Gremlins grabbing most of the rebounds. Simonsen had 28 points and 20 rebounds on the evening. Senior Jordan Jurva followed with 10 points.

“Brad continues to show us why he is going to Michigan Tech next year,” said Lawson. “He is just on step ahead of the rest of the floor. He has all the right movements and did a great job tonight.”

The Gremlins widened the lead to 15 points after three periods and eventually 20 points to end the game at 52-32.

Trevor Torola led the Copper Kings with nine points. Eli McParlan followed with seven.

Next Tuesday, the Gremlins will travel to Ishpeming while the Copper Kings will face Dollar Bay that same night.

Calumet 9 5 10 8 — 32

Houghton 13 12 14 13 — 52