A2SportsFront 12-23-10

8/8/2019 A2SportsFront 12-23-10

1/2

Pioneer wins over Belleville,while top-ranked Huron losesat Romulus Holiday Classic

Reversal of

PLEASE SEE RATS /2-C

December 23, 2010Heritage Media

O UR S PORTSCSECTION

Log onto our Web sitefor additional stories, local

video and daily updateson everything Ann Arbor.

fortunes

By Mike LarsonA2 Journal

Despite a slow start and a latescare, the Ann Arbor Pioneerboys basketball team cameaway with a win Friday nightover Belleville at the RomulusHoliday Classic.

The Pioneers struggledearly on, scoring justtwo points in the firstquarter.

However, the AnnArbor team bouncedback to win the game47-42.

Belleville reallycame out and put the pressureon us defensively to start thegame, Pioneer coach RexStanczak said. They reallykept us off of our game in thefirst quarter. That was evident

by the score.After the first quarter

though, the Pioneers camestorming back.

After opening the secondquarter with six straightpoints, the Pioneers tied thegame at 8-8.

Bellevilles offense keptchurning, but with 2:13 left inthe half, James Kelly hit a layupto give Pioneer a 15-14 advan-tage. It was the teamsfirst lead, and an edge itwould never give up.

By halftime, thePioneers led 18-14.

Right beforehalftime ouroffense startedworking alittle better,Stanczaksaid. Butwe stillhave a lot towork on.

Pioneer

kept thingsworking inthe thirdquarter,however,the team wasnever reallyable to widenthe gap muchagainst thescrappy

Belleville team.I thought we played well

against a tough opponent,Belleville coach Don Hickmansaid. Down the stretch we real-ly did some good things, we justcouldnt get over the hump.

At the end of the third quar-ter, Pioneer led 29-22, but the

Tigers were threatening. Late inthe fourthquar-ter, thePioneersheld onto a 39-32

lead, butBelleville refused to roll over.

Tiger Deante Isom scoredthree quick points to shrink thePioneer lead to just four points.

With the clock ticking down,the Tigers kept up theirdefensivepressure.

With justninesec-ondsleftin thegame,

Bellevilles Jamie Pearsonbanked in a three-pointer tomake the score 43-42 in favorof the Pioneers.

However, that was asclose as the Tigers wouldget to winning, as PioneersJerimiah Strode hit a pair of clutch free throws with just

seconds left to seal the win.We could have done alot better late in the game,Stanczak said. But I washappy with the way we con-verted from the free throwline. Its a good win for us.

Kelly and Isom led theirrespective teams as eachplayer scored 14 points in thecontest.

Strode and MikeKielczewski each added eightpoints for Pioneer in the vic-tory.

Weve still got a lot towork on, but Im happy withthe early win, Stanczak said.

Mike Larson can bereached by email [email protected].

River Ratsrouted in Romulus


The tem-perature wasfrigid out-side on

FridaynightwhenHuronfaced off againstthe hostEagles in themarquee game

of the RomulusHoliday Classic.However, it was

difficult to tellwhat was cold-er, the frostyoutdoors, orthe HuronRiver Ratsshooting.Huronstruggled tohitbas-

ketsfor theentiregameas theyfell tothe hot-shooting

hosts,60-47.

We justcouldnt

shoot,Huron coach

Waleed Samaha said.But Romulus had a lot to

do with that. I dont want totake anything away from them.They really put pressure on us

and kept us from doing what wewanted to do.Romulus came out firing on allcylinders to start the game, hit-ting four three-pointers in theopening frame to take a 12-11

lead at the

end of thefirst quar-ter.Huron start-ed the sec-ond quarter

looking to take control.The teams first points of theframe came on an alley-oopdunk from Andre Bond to givethe River Rats a 13-12 advan-tage.Romulus responded with an11-0 run, including back-to-back three-pointers from EliRobertson.After that, Huron never seemedto be able to get back into thehalf.By the break, the Eagles had a30-17 lead.

Huron kept try-ing to get intoits patented trapdefense, but wasunable to.We justcouldnt get inand do whatwe wanted,Samaha said.We put thepressure on acouple times inthe third andfourth quarters,but we couldnt

get it consistently.The Eagles shooting cooled off in the second half, but Huronwas unable to take advantage

Photos byJonathan

Knight/A2Journal

PioneersJerimiah

Strode andHurons

Andre Bondplay during last

weeks Holiday Classicat Romulus.

BoysPIONEER 47BELLEVILLE 42

BoysHURON 60ROMULUS 47

See video of thissporting event atwww.heritage.com

VIDEO ONLINE:

QuickhitsHastings hopes toreturn soon

The Huron boys basket-ball team got an unwelcomedsurprise last Friday whenthey traveled to Romulus.

The River Rats took on thehost Eagles in the RomulusHoliday Classic and fell big,losing 60-47.

Huron, which boasts twoof the best players in thestate in A.J. Mathew andDante Williams, struggledto find the basket, while theEagles seemed unable to miss

in the first half.Another reason the Ratsstruggled was the absence of senior guard Matt Hastings,who sat out with a small tearin his plantar fascia.

Hastings said that hiscoaches wanted to rest him toprevent further injury.

The senior said he hopes tobe back in action for HuronsDecember 28 game againstCass Tech, which will be heldat the Breslin Center in EastLansing.

Detroit teams makehistory

On Sunday night Detroitsthree professional sports

teams made history.The Pistons, Red Wingsand Lions games all wentinto overtime Sunday, andthat accomplishment markedthe first time any city had itsNBA, NHL and NFL teamsgo into overtime on the sameday.

The Pistons defeated theNew Orleans Hornets 111-108, the Red Wings lost to theDallas Stars 4-3 and the Lionsended their NFL-record los-ing streak (26 games) againstTampa Bay with a 23-20 win.

Big Chill overshootsattendance, stillbreaks record

On Saturday, December 11the Big Chill hockey gamebetween the University of Michigan and Michigan Statebroke the attendance recordfor an outdoor hockey game,but the final numbers arentas big as originally reported.

During the game, it wasannounced that the record-breaking attendance was113,411, however, the folks atthe Guinness Book of WorldRecords are reporting theattendance to be 85,451.

The new number is still aworld record.

High school sportsgoing on hiatus

The prep sporst sesaon willtak a short break for the holi-days after today.

Most teams will take abreak, with their schedulespicking back up after the firstof they year.

Its a nice break, Pioneerboys basketball coach RexStanczak said. Although itstough to just get your seasonstarted, and then have to takea break. Well keep practicingand keep trying to get better.

Huron prepares forMeijerclassic

TheHuronbasket-ball teamwil get achance toplay at theBreslin Centera little early thisseason.

But not for the statechampionship, at least,not yet.

On Dec. 28, the RiverRats will take onDetroit Cass Techat the Breslin inEast Lansing.The two teamsare regarded astwo of the best inDivision 1.

8/8/2019 A2SportsFront 12-23-10

2/2

Page 2-C Thursday, December 23, 2010 HERITAGE MEDIA/A2 JOURNAL

December is a time for cel-ebration, a time for renewal anda time to reflect.

But it is certainly not thetime to start panicking.

This is especially true if youhave anything to do with theHuron River Rats basketballprogram.

Huron lost toRomulus on Friday,and the Rats losthuge.

They played ter-ribly and were beatenby a team that justflat out played better.Not to beat a deadRiver Rat, but theteam didnt deserveto win. In fact, withthe exception of a fewminutes in the fourthquarter, Huron neverwas really close tomaking a comeback.

What happened?Huron was sup-

posed to be the best team in thestate.It was reported in this news-

paper, as well as pretty muchevery other rag and onlinesports site in the state that theRiver Rats were almost certain-ly going to make it back to theDivision 1 state championship.And this time they would win.

The Detroit Free Press evenran an article declaring not onlythat Huron was the best team inthe state, but that everyone whofollows high school basketballshould know that Huron is thefavorite.

But the River Rats lost in justtheir third game of the season.

And boy was it ugly.Romulus hit three-pointer

after three-pointer, while Hurontossed up more bricks than anupset toddler at Legoland.

So what gives?Well, the answer is pretty

simple.Nothing.Like I said, its not time to

start panicking.Its not like

Huron lost tosome slouch teamfrom CascadesConference orsomething.

The River Ratslost to Romulus,which is also con-sidered one of thebest teams in thestate.

They also lostto Romulus onthe Eagles homecourt.

Sure, Huron hasplenty to improveon, but thats noth-

ing that the River Rats werentaware of.After the game, Huron coach

Waleed Samaha talked abouthis team, saying that he was dis-appointed with the loss, but hecertainly wasnt worried.

And he didnt look it.The coach wasnt rattled.

Sure, he seemed frustrated, butthats to be expected.

He just watched his team, ateam that he knows to be incred-ibly talented, throw up rimbangers for about two hours orso.

Youd probably be frustratedtoo.

But he wasnt worked up.In fact, he was quite the oppo-

site; he was calm.

You see, Samaha is smartenough to know that losing abasketball game in Decemberdoesnt define his team.

He knows that his team could(and probably will) lose a fewmore games before all is saidand done.

Heck, when you think aboutit, the River Rats, could techni-cally lose every other game ontheir schedule, and as long asthey get things figured out bythe time the district tourna-ment started, they could stillmake a run.

Of course, the River Ratswont lose ever game. Huron,despite the recent loss, is areally good team.

But the point is that Samahaknows that it doesnt matterwhat his team does right now.

As long as they keep improv-ing and keep learning, it doesntmatter if the team wins.

As long as the team is readyto play once March rolls around,

it doesnt matter who the teamloses to.However, the team cant real-

ly be satisfied with mediocrityeither.

So Samaha shouldnt be wor-ried about his team not makingit to the playoffs, but he shouldbe making sure that his play-ers are ready to get back andcompete and right the ship, soto speak.

December is a time for hardwork and learning from mis-takes, its not a time to panic.

The Huron team still hasthree months before it needs toeven think about panicking.

Mike Larson can be reachedby email at [email protected].

RATSFROM PAGE 1-C

GENERALADMISSION

MIKELARSON

Its much too earlyto start to worry

as the River Rats couldnt getshots to fall.None of our players shotwell, Samaha said. We really

needed a player to step up andmake some shots. But we didnthave that.In the fourth quarter, the River

Rats started to make a run,whittling the Romulus leaddown to five points with 4:12left, however, that was as closeas the Ann Arbor team wouldget.The Eagles refused to getrattled, and converted their freethrows to stay one step ahead

of the River Rats.In the end, the Eagles won 60-47.

Its still early, Samaha said .We play teams like this so wecan prepare for March. Now we just need to get back to work.Mike Lewis and Kyle Bakereach scored nine points in thelosing effort for Huron.The River Rats are now 2-1 onthe season.



Wasnt Huron supposed to bethe best prep basketball team inthe area?

Apparently nobody told thatto the Ann Arbor Pioneers.We dont worry about whatanyone else says, Pioneercoach Rex Stanczak said. Weknow weve got some goodthings going, and we just try toplay our game.

On Friday, both Pioneer andHuron played in the RomulusHoliday Classic, but onlyPioneer was able to come awaywith a win.

Huron fell to host Romuluswhile Pioneer defeatedBelleville in a 47-42 shootout.

Pioneer proved that not onlycan they play with top-notchopponents, but the team provedthat it has the potential to bemore than just an also-ran inthis seasons Southeastern

Conference race.This is a good win for us,Stanczak said of the Bellevillegame. It is going to give ussome confidence as we move on.And thats always a good thing.

The Belleville win evenbecame a little more valuable asthe Tigers proved they were alegit opponent with a recent winover state-ranked Cass Tech.

Although its easy to comparethe Pioneers to the River Ratsearly in the season, Stanczaksays his team isnt ready forcomparisons.

They have a great team overthere, the Pioneer coach saidof Huron. And we will get toplay them twice. Its too earlyin the season to start lookingahead to those games, but youknow, we shocked them lastyear.

Last season, the Pioneersdefeated Huron at theRiverdome.

However, this years Pioneersquad is much different thanlast years.

Most notably is the loss of David Veals, who graduated inthe spring.

This season, the Pioneers arerelying on James Kelly to leadthe way.James is a force, Stanczaksaid. Hes one of the best ath-letes we have.

In fact, if Kelly is able to stayeligible, something he struggledwith last season, there is littledoubt hes one of the best post

players in the region.Hes got great touch aroundthe basket, and knows how

to move people, the Pioneercoach said. He really adds a lotto our team.

In addition to Kelly, Pioneerwill look to guards JerimiahStrode and Jimmy Holman tolead the Pioneers on the floor.

I really like our guard play,Stanczak said. We really relyon our guards to lead our team.The way we did things (againstBelleville), Im really happywith our guards.

Despite the big win, the

Pioneers arent looking too farahead.

We have our own goals andexpectations, the coach said.We arent comparing our-selves to any other teams. Weare just doing what we need todo to be successful. We are justdoing our thing and playingour game. Thats all we are con-cerned with right now.


Pioneer basketball justtrying to get better

Photo by Jonathan Knight/A2 JOURNAL

Pioneers Anthony Hugan drives to the basket againstBelleville.

GIRLS BASKETBALL ROUNDUPBy Mike LarsonA2 Journal

The Ann Arbor Hurongirls basketball team madequick work of rival Saline onTuesday night, defeating thehost Hornets 59-26.

The key to the Rats successcame with a high-pressure,full-court defense.

Huron forced Saline into 23turnovers as the River Rats jumped out to a 16-6 lead at theend of the first quarter.

Saline couldnt keep up withHuron as the game wore on.In the end, the River Rats fin-ished the game by outscoringthe Hornets 19-4 in the fourthquarter.

Huron was led by DevinTalley, who finished with 15points. Other River Rat leaderswere Alexis Garner with 12points and Kelcy Barott with11.

Saline, which falls to 0-3 onthe season, was led by KatieCrysler with six points.

Huron is now 3-1 overalland 1-0 in the SoutheasternConference.

Huron 72Skyline 11The Skyline girls basketball

team still has a long way to gobefore it is going to be com-petitive in the SoutheasternConference.

This was evident Fridaywhen the Eagles traveled acrosstown to take on the Huron RiverRats.Huron stomped Skyline, trounc-ing the Eagles 72-11.

The River Rats came outwith guns blazing in the firsthalf, taking a 47-7 lead after twoquarters.

In the second half, Huron letup a bit, but still held a 62-7 leadat the start of the fourth.

The River Rats had four play-ers scoring in double digitsas Bianca Williams added 13points, Brionna Kilgore scored12 and Kelcy Barott and AlexisGarner each added 10.

Skyline was led by AnitaVander Meulen with fourpoints, while Kierra Jordanscored three.


A sloppy second quarter led to the Ann ArborPioneer basketball teams first loss of the season.

On Tuesday, the team traveled to Beverly Hillsto take on Detroit Country Day, and after a roughsecond frame, the Pioneers fell 74-40.

With the score tied at 15-15 at the end of thefirst quarter, Country Day went on a tear.

The Yellowjackets held the Pioneers to just afield goal in the second quarter, outscoring theAnn Arbor squad 23-2.

After that, the Pioneers were never able to

climb back into the game.Despite the loss, Pioneer was led by James

Kelly, who scored 11 points. Other Pioneer scor-ers were Aaron Schoenfeldt and Jeremiah Strodewith nine points each and Jimmy Holman andAnthony Hugan with four points each.

Country Day had five players in double digitsas Lee Bailey led the team with 15 points andAdam Zavadil, Austin Price, Mahesh Umasankarand Amir Williams all scored 10.

With the loss, Pioneer falls to 2-1 on the season.Mike Larson can be reached by email at

[email protected].

Pioneer cant stand up toDetroit Country Day

Follow A2 Journalsports on Facebook

Become a fan of yourlocal sports section onfacebook and browsethrough local photo albumsand view video clips oflocal games. Search forA2JournalSports at face-book.com to find us.

Pioneer 70Saline 30

Pioneers Kamilah Cartercontinued her dominance andSaline continued to struggle.

On Friday, Carter scored 29points as she led the Pioneerspast the lowly Hornets, 70-30.

Pioneer started the gameon a 21-8 run, but the AnnArbor lead swelled to 29points by the half.

The Hornets had theirbest offensive showing of thegame in the third quarter,putting up 13 points, but inthe end, Pioneer still won theblowout by 40 points.

Maya Richmond scored 17points for Pioneer, and cappedoff her double-double with 11rebounds.

Emma Brann also added 12rebounds and three points.

Saline was led by AmandaPrice with nine points.

Mike Larson can bereached by email [email protected].

Follow A2JournalSports onFacebook

Follow us on Twitterat http://twitter.com/

A2JournalSports

Photo by Jonathan Knight/A2 JOURNAL

Hurons Kyle Baker takes the ball to the hoop during the River Rats game against Romulus.

Documents

A2SportsFront 12-23-10