Recap: A total team effort lifts 23-2 West Bloomfield to regional semi win over Falcons
There were brief hugs on one side, and no tears, while there were folded arms and long discussions on the other.
And unless you knew which side of the scoreboard at Lake Orion High School belonged to which group after Tuesday’s Division 1 regional semifinal between OAA Red rivals Rochester and West Bloomfield, you’d have been hard pressed to figure it out just by demeanor.
It’s all about expectations.
For the Falcons of Rochester, who won their first district title since 2008 to get there, losing to the defending state champions for the third time this season, 61-41, wasn’t cause for dejection.
But for the top-ranked Lakers, with bigger aspirations than just winning a regional semifinal, there were things to talk about.
“I think it’s a thing where it’s hard to really get up for teams, with the players and we keep stressing to them, ‘You got to get up for every single team.’ I think that’s a part of the problem, then I think the other issue is just a thing of us continuing to play together all the time and trust in each other, which is why we had this long meeting after the game,” said West Bloomfield coach Darrin McAllister, whose postgame discussion with his team ran until nearly halftime of the second semifinal game of Tuesday evening.
“But it’s a bigger thing. We gotta figure it out, because our goal is more than beating Rochester, you know, so we, this really is about working it out. So it’s not Rochester, I think is more or less us.”
The Lakers (23-2) will take on another OAA Red squad, Lake Orion (20-5), in Thursday’s regional championship game at 7 p.m. The Dragons beat Howell, 47-44, in the second semifinal of Tuesday evening.
Rochester’s game plan was to try to limit the scoring of the Davis twins, Indya and Summer, and make other Lakers beat them.
Unfortunately for the Falcons, they did.
Kendall Hendrix had 10 of her team-high 17 points in the first quarter, as the Lakers built a 19-7 lead, despite just four combined points from the twins, using a 17-0 run to push the lead to 34-15 at the half.
“That’s what is awesome about those (West Bloomfield) girls is that it doesn’t matter who you try to stop, there’s another girl who’s going to step up.
“You know, they had a couple extra other girls that we didn’t even think we’re going to be able to score and they come out and they hit shots. That’s what championship teams do — they find ways to win, whether you try to shut someone down or not. That was our goal is to shut down the twins — you know, not shut them down, but to limit what they’re going to score,”
Rochester coach Bill Thurston said.
“We tried that we did it and just their defense created the turnovers like usual and that kind of in the big scheme of things cost us the most points is the turnovers and not being able to handle the pressure.”
The Lakers led 4626 going to the fourth quarter, and maintained that 20-point advantage throughout, but never expanded on it.
Rochester sophomore Alice Max had 12 of her gamehigh 20 points in the fourth
quarter, as the Falcons kept the deficit from getting any bigger. Natalie Rayce added 12 points for Rochester.
Summer Davis contributed 13 points, while Indya Davis had eight. Sydney Hendrix added nine for the Lakers, while Jada Vaughn had six off the bench.
Rochester will graduate six seniors off this year’s squad, including starters Abigail Pleasant, Royce and Stevie Norgrove, but return both Max and fellow 6-foot sophomore Kiely Robinson.
“It’s an awesome group, you know, like I just told them, this group, with the
seniors we have, and the girls we have coming up behind them that, you know, I just hope that our seniors did a great job with our sophomores, our juniors and showing them how to lead,” Thurston said.
“And you see that even now with our JV teams and our freshman teams, it’s just the leadership is just phenomenal.
“And these girls, the seniors that we have have been here with me since the beginning, since I started as a head coach here at Rochester, which is awesome.”