Fast start leads Royal Oak past Berkley, 52-40
The host Royal Oak Ravens rolled to a big halftime lead and went on to defeat their rivals, the Berkley Bears, 52-40 Friday night.
The Bears scored the opening four points of the game to take an early lead, but then Royal Oak’s half-court press went to work, and Berkley simply had no answer for it. The Ravens would go on a 31-6 run and lead 31-12 at halftime.
“Our first four minutes weren’t exactly great, but we kind of had this mantra of let’s win the next four minutes and the next four minutes, and I think our girls started to feed off some success,” Ravens head coach Brian Sopata said. “Basketball is a game of momentum. We just tried to keep that roll going. It was really nice to see us defend. Defense led to some offense, and we got some easy ones, and we hit some big shots as well.”
Berkley would fight hard in the second half, chipping away at the Ravens’ lead. Led by Ashely Loon — who had 19 of her game-high 21 points after halftime — the Bears outscored Royal Oak in both the third and fourth quarters.
“(Loon) is a player. She will show up every night. Teams, we know they are going to key on her, but she doesn’t complain. She doesn’t say a lot other than she gets out there and plays, kind of business like. And if you give her much, she’s going to take it,” Bears head coach Kirk Carolan said.
But Berkley was never able to get the deficit down any further than the 12 points at the end of the game as Royal Oak’s more balanced attack was able to keep them from having any long dry spells offensively. The Ravens were paced by 18 points from Sara Soraghan. But Royal Oak also got 11 points from Lexi Romesberg, seven points and 10 rebounds from Kira Vance, and six points and eight rebounds from Sarah Ammon.
“I think we’re starting to get our legs under us a bit more too. This season has been rapid, and some girls are starting to feel more comfortable with what we’re doing, and again, the confidence. The last couple of games we’ve put the ball through the basket, and we’re just trying to feed off that,” Sopata said.
After struggling to score all season, the Royal Oak offense has now topped 50 points in two straight games for the first time all year.
With the win, Royal Oak improves to 6-4 overall. The Ravens are back in action on Tuesday when they travel to Clarkston to face the Wolves in an OAA Red match-up.
Berkely hosts Troy Athens on Tuesday in an OAA Blue showdown. The Bears are one of four teams in the division with two losses, all of whom are fighting for the division title.
“That’s big for us. Right now, our division is kind of open, and we’re right in the mix. We feel like if we show up every night, there’s no reason why things can’t have a pretty good outcome for us at the end of the year. But we’ve got to go one at a time, so Tuesday at Troy Athens,” Carolan said.