Stoney Creek avenges previous loss to Troy
ROCHESTER HILLS >> Stoney Creek just keeps impressing with its play on the boys basketball court this winter.
The Cougars (6-1) are hoping to spoil preseason favorite Troy’s plan for an OAA White championship.
They took a big step in that direction Sunday by thrashing the visiting Colts 65-47, avenging their only loss of the season and firing on all cylinders again from start to finish in the process.
Stoney Creek senior point guard Trevor Smith was once again in beast mode, scoring 18 points, dishing a school-record 11 assists and clearing six rebounds in another strong argument for league MVP honors. Smith gave the host Cougars the lead to stay by finger rolling in the lane and then swishing a triple in back-toback
sequences in the final seconds of the first half.
Role player Jake Felton stole a Troy pass and went in for a layup that beat the second quarter buzzer to give Stoney Creek a 3428 lead at the break. Smith fed fellow senior Alex Reiter in the left corner for a 3-pointer to open the third frame. His one-handed runner followed on the ensuing possession and the Cougars never looked back.
Troy trimmed its deficit to 5145 courtesy of two free throws by Colts star senior guard Brody Parker (Oakland University) early in the fourth quarter, but would not find any further traction in its comeback attempt. Stoney Creek’s
Lance Fogelberg nailed a 3-pointer from the left elbow and found Reiter for a reverse layup to answer. Fogelberg’s fourth trifecta of the game made it 63-45 with two minutes left and sent the COVID-19 limitedcapacity crowd to the exits.
Fogelberg finished with 14 points. Reiter added 10 for the winning club.
“We are a senior-dominated group, we’ve been playing together a pretty long time and everybody can really shoot the basketball,” Fogelberg said.
“We’re a team that loves to share the ball and dedicate itself to defense. I think we’re all happy with the start, but we all know, the book for this season is far from being written yet.”
Smith doesn’t want to see his squad lose focus or rest on its laurels.
“We’ve got to keep going to work every day, never take our eye off the prize,” he said.
“The ball movement was very crisp today and that opened things up for us from the outside.”
Stoney Creek’s only loss of the season was 78-70 defeat in double overtime to Troy during the first week of the campaign. Troy (31) recently got done with a 10-day pause to its schedule because of Coronavirus exposure. On Saturday, the Colts went into triple overtime before besting Rochester Adams, 66-63.
Playing a marathon game less than 24 hours earlier took its toll on Troy against Stoney Creek late-game fatigue-wise. Gary Fralick’s team’s legs were wobbly down the stretch Sunday.
“Going back-to-back is tough,” Fralick said.
“You can’t take anything away from Stoney Creek though, they shot the lights out and the defended well late. And that was the ball game.
Troy has five games in the next eight days to make up for the lost time from its quarantining.
“We’ve got to regroup quick, we don’t have time to lick our wounds,” Fralick said.
Parker, the leading scorer in the OAA the past two years, paced the Colts Sunday with a game-high 21 points. Madonna-signee Ethan Emerzian, Parker’s backcourt partner, put in 14 points in the loss.