RED HAWKS BEAT BERKLEY IN BATTLE FOR FIRST IN OAA BLUE
Troy Athens overcame 12-point fourth quarter deficit to win
If the winning streak was going to continue, the Troy Athens Red Hawks needed someone to get hot — and fast.
Down 12 points with just less than half the fourth quarter already gone in Thursday’s first-place OAA Blue showdown at Berkley, the Red Hawks needed under two minutes to erase the deficit and take the lead, finishing the game on a 10-0 run to win, 53-47, their seventh straight victory.
Leading the way in the comeback was Emmanuel Robinson, who hit five 3-pointers in the second half, three of them in the fourth-quarter rally.
“Mentally, I was off — I shot like — what? Oh-for-four starting off, but, you know, I trust my skills. I trust the time I had in the gym, and I just kept shooting it. My coach has confidence in me when I shoot the ball. So when I was shooting the ball, I don’t think about, I just let it go,” said Robinson, who finished with a game-high 19 points, all but two of that in the second half.
“So I had this for my team. Brogan (Withun) was in foul trouble. So I had to step up.”
The Red Hawks (10-6) started the season 3-6, but haven’t lost since snapping a threegame skid with a win on Jan. 18, moving into a first-place tie atop the OAA’s Blue Division with Berkley with Tuesday’s nail biter of a victory over Lake Orion.
That streak was in jeopardy in the second half of Thurday’s game, though, with the 6-foot-7 Withun in foul trouble much of the game, and the Bears (10-6, 5-3 OAA Blue) capitalizing to twice build doubledigit leads in the second half.
The Red Hawks cut a double-digit thirdquarter deficit all the way down to three with Evan Colquhoun’s layup with 1:20 left, but Tamir Runinkevich nailed a 3-pointer with 30 seconds left in the third to make it a 36-30 game headed to the fourth, then nailed another 3 on the first possession of the final quarter, as the Bears started to build the lead right back up.
“We felt pretty good. Like, alright, we’ve worked our way back, you know, and then yeah, when they get back up to 12, it is — it’s like, ‘Oh, man, we’ve kind of put ourselves back in this hole,’” Athens coach David Scott said. “That’s not a good place you want to be and so, you know, just super, super proud of our boys and how hard they played. And, you know, I really thought we stepped up our defensive intensity a little bit there at the end and got a couple turnovers and I think just kind of made Berkley a little more uncomfortable than we had the whole game.”
Berkley’s lead would hit 12 points on Donovan Powell’s driving bucket with 4:36 left, giving the Bears a 45-33 margin, but
they’d only score one more time the rest of the way, outscored 20-2 over the final four-plus minutes.
“We were just talking about just being shellshocked. I don’t even know — I’m at a loss for words,” Berkley coach Joe Sermo said. “I was so proud of our kids. We played extremely well tonight. They met their match. I think we played well for 29 minutes and we didn’t play well enough in the last three minutes to finish it off.”
It helped that Withun came back in to help the rally get started. He may have only finished with eight points — held mostly in check by a Bears team that can play him straight up more than most — but his presence helped create seams for teammates to shoot through, nonetheless.
“He has a ton of gravity. And, you know, we’re fortunate that we have him, because there’s not a lot of kids like him in the OAA, let alone the OAA Blue,” Scott said. “When he’s in the game, people have to pay attention. You have to put a body — or two — on him. And that opens up things for some of our other players. And tonight, you know, Emmanuel was the beneficiary.” An 8-0 run by Athens cut it to 45-51 with 3:18 left, then dunk by Withun on the break made the margin just two, 45-43, with 2:50 to play. Berkley answered with a bucket on inbounds play to make it a four-point game, but a Robinson 3 with 2:10 to go cut it to just one, 47-46.
He’d hit two free throws on a technical foul with 1:57 left to give Athens a onepoint lead — its first of the game — then hit a 3 on the ensuing possession to make it a four-point margin.
“We knew they weren’t gonna go away. Obviously, Emmanuel made big shots, at the big moment,” Sermo said. “He’s a big-time player. And that’s what big-time players do.”
Kyree Harper hit both ends of a one-and-one with 37 seconds left to close out the scoring.
Harper finished with 15 points for the Red Hawks, while Colquhoun had eight. Powell had 10 points to go with Runinkevich’s team-high 18.
Athens looks to extend its streak at home on Tuesday, hosting Royal Oak, while Berkley will host Rochester.