Second-chance points help Knights top Western in district opener
The postseason is all about second chances.
Until the Walled Lake Northern Knights started getting a few second-chance points in the second half of Monday’s Division 1 district opener against Walled Lake Western, though, it was no certainty that their second lease on life was going anywhere.
A back-tip offensive rebound found its way to Amal Younes with two minutes to go in the third quarter, and she buried the 3-pointer — following it up with another 3 with three seconds left in the third — as the Knights finally pulled away for good.
Fueled by that spurt, Northern opened the fourth quarter on a 15-0 run, and held Western to just three free throws in the final period, pulling away for a decisive 56-28 win.
“It was a back rebound, a second-chance point. And I keep telling them all year, ‘Guys, second-chance points hurt us. So let’s use it to our benefit. And let’s get a couple of for us and see what happens.’ And we did that, we crashed the boards got some offensive rebounds. And looked good,” said Northern coach Josh Pees. “We crashed the boards tonight, the second half, that was a big key. And then just being more patient on offense, you know. We took a lot of quick shots in the first half. I told them, ‘We need to slow down, move a little more and take some better shots.’”
The Knights (11-12) move on to Wednesday’s district semifinals, where they’ll take on Lakes Valley Conference co-champion Lakeland (18-4) in the second game of the night. Milford (14-8) takes on Walled Lake Central (3-18) in the 5:30 p.m. game.
Knocking off the Eagles would allow the Knights to continue to make the most of their second chance in the postseason, where all their goals — all but the LVC title — are still within their grasp.
“We did let the league title get away — we still won the (Walled Lake) city championship, which was one of our first goals we set out to do every year,” said Pees, whose team tied for second in the LVC last year, but slipped to fifth this season. “You know, I told them like, Lakeland, we had them beat the first time we let it slip away. Second game (on Feb. 29), we just kind of just did the same play over and over just to kind of not show anything because I figured we’d be playing them on Wednesday. And so we’re gonna gear up and get ready to play. We’re excited.”
First, though, the Knights needed to get past Western (7-15), a team they’d beaten by 15 and 23 points in the regular-season meetings, but one that had gone 5-3 in its final eight
games, while the Knights were 2-7 in that same span.
Through the majority of the first three quarters, the Knights couldn’t quite pull away.
Western hit the first bucket of the game, but Northern responded with a Younes 3, and never trailed again, leading 15-9 after one quarter, 23-16 at
the half, and 28-16 after a 5-0 run to start the second half. But the Warriors had the deficit back to just five points, 29-24, before Younes hit the two decisive 3s to close out the third, giving the Knights a 35-25 lead headed to the fourth.
That ballooned to 50-25 before the Warriors would score again, when Emma Hoffmeyer split a pair of free throws with 1:03 left in the game. Makenna Krzisnik, who led the Warriors with 16 points, finished
out the scoring with two free throws with 35.4 left.
Younes hit five times from 3-point range, finishing with 18 points, while Macie Hunter had 12, and Aleena McCullough had 10.
“Once they got hitting those 3s and started knocking those down, it’s kind of hard to stop that. I mean, I thought my girls paid very well. Defensively, did a hell of a job, you know, a good job in regards to just getting the turnovers. We just couldn’t finish. I mean, bottom
line is, we didn’t have enough horses to finish the race,” said Western coach Kyle Bryant. “Our strategy was exactly that — our strategy was not allow them to get the second opportunities. You know, like I told the girls, I wanted them to live and die by the 3. And it was working for a while. But … once we stopped boxing out, and you know, the little, silly fouls, turnovers that’s really kind of what started making us kind of lose that momentum.”
The Warriors will graduate four seniors, all of whom started Monday’s game, but Bryant takes solace in the growth he saw from his team throughout his first season on the Western bench.
“I tell the girls, it’s a turtle race: Not about how you start, it’s how you finish. And this group of young ladies finished strong. … We’ve had some downs, especially in the league, but I saw a lot of ups … the progress,” said Bryant, who’s the
third coach the program has had in the past handful of years, since Western’s run of dominating the league and district ended abruptly. “I’m very proud. They’ve come a long way, every single one of them has come a long way. Now, I’m looking forward to next year. I’m gonna be losing four seniors. But I’ve got a great group of girls coming up, but I know we’re gonna we’re gonna be able to make some more noise in the LVC and the districts, for sure.”