Unbeaten St. Mary’s upended by Grand Blanc
For 442 days, nobody had solved the puzzle to beating Orchard Lake St. Mary’s on the basketball floor.
Riding a 26-game win streak that dated back to Jan. 20 of the 2019-20 season, the Eaglets finally ran into a team that passed the test.
Grand Blanc was getting a second shot at the top-ranked Eaglets on Tuesday night in a Division 1 quarterfinal at Davison High School. The Bobcats controlled most of the game and held off a late St. Mary’s rally to pick up a 58-53 victory and advance to Thursday’s state semifinals.
“I don’t want to say I am proud of my guys, I say I love my guys,” OLSM coach Todd Covert said after the game. “What they have done the last two years – 26-game winning streak, beaten probably 15 top-10 teams in the last two years – that one game will not define them or who we are as a program. You have to give credit where it’s due to Grand Blanc. They are a great team.”
These two met early in the season, with St. Mary’s (13-1) picking up a 65-52 victory at home. However, the second encounter saw the Bobcats (12-2) bottle up the OLSM offense for most of the game.
Grand Blanc established a 12-5 lead in the early going and the Eaglets struggled to find their outside shot while the Bobcats did a good job of cleaning up the glass.
“We wanted to limit (OLSM) to one shot, and our guys did a great job of that,” Grand Blanc coach Mike Thomas said. “They fought and clawed for the ball.”
St. Mary’s would get it’s only lead of the game early in the second quarter. Mr. Basketball finalist Julian Roper II hit his lone basket of the first half to open the frame, and that was followed by a 3-pointer from junior point guard Kareem Rozier to make it 16-14 for the Eaglets.
Grand Blanc answered with a 12-2 run to regain a lead that it would never lose.
The Bobcats led 26-22 at the break, but extended the lead to 41-32 after three as they continued to physically defend Roper and keep OLSM cold from the outside.
Roper was held to just four points heading into the final quarter, while OLSM knocked down just two 3-pointers in the first 24 minutes.
“We wanted to force him left,” Thomas said of Roper. “We watched a lot of his games and he liked going right, didn’t really like going left. We just wanted to keep a body on him and make everything tough, nothing easy going to the basket.”
The Bobcats had their biggest lead of the game with about three minutes to play at 50-36. That’s when the Eaglets turned up the pressure defensively and started to aggressively trap the Grand Blanc guards. It led to turnovers, and that combined with four missed free throws from the Bobcats, opened the door for an Eaglets’ comeback.
Roper scored 11 points in the final quarter before fouling out with 22.7 seconds left with St. Mary’s down 55-50.
After a Grand Blanc free throw, Rozier raced down the floor and knocked down a 3-pointer with 7.1 seconds remaining to make it 56-53.
Covert would use the team’s final timeout and the Eaglets forced a 5-second violation on Grand Blanc, giving them the ball with a chance to tie.
However, St. Mary’s threw the inbounds pass away. Grand Blanc got the ball and sealed up the win with a pair of free throws.
“We were going to try and get something for Will (Smythe) and (Grand Blanc) jumped out on it and we didn’t have anything good drawn up. That’s my fault for sure,” Covert said of the play.
Ty Rodgers led Grand Blanc in the win with 17 points while RJ Taylor had 16 points.
Roper finished with 16 points for St. Mary’s, while Rozier had a game-high 18 points.
“Kareem is as good of a human being as there is and he’s a tremendous basketball player. He’s an ultimate competitor and leader,” Covert said of his junior guard. “If some big-time program doesn’t come get him, they are making a big mistake. He’s the true point guard you see a lot in college basketball right now.”
While the ending is disappointing for the previously-unbeaten Eaglets, Covert was happy that his team got to finish the season on the court after having their postseason ended by the pandemic last March with St. Mary’s eying a deep postseason run.
Covert and the Eaglets were a big part of the “Let Them Play” movement that put together a rally at the capitol on Jan. 30 when the winter season was unable to get started.
Multiple St. Mary’s players spoke at the rally to encourage Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to reconsider their stances on contact sports.
“Probably as proud a moment as I have had as a coach was watching my guys go to the capitol and speak about how important it was for them to play this season,” Covert said. “What a life lesson that was. That’s something I will take with me for a long time.”