GOUL HAUNTS MUSTANGS
Fraser’s regular season finale ends with 79-68 victory over Lutheran North
The Lutheran North Mustangs were seeing ghosts on Thursday night.
No, there were no apparitions haunting their home court in Macomb, but instead a Goul — Fraser’s Ashton Goul, to be specific.
The 6-foot-7 Rambler scored 27 points with 10 rebounds and five assists to help Fraser claim a 79-68 victory over Lutheran North to wrap up their regular season with a 14-8 record.
“The biggest thing about him (Goul), he has 27 points, he probably is close to a double-double in rebounds, and he’s such a willing passer,” said Fraser head coach Steve Norgrove. “He gets his teammates involved. He makes it so hard to guard him.
“He’s really shown a lot of maturity where he’s getting bumped, he’s getting held and he’s just turning and running the other end of the floor because if you have the bigger picture in mind, that little picture isn’t so important. I’m really proud of the way he’s playing and getting his teammates going.”
Fraser opened up the first quarter by taking an 18-15 lead before dominating the second by going on a 17-5 run, helping take a 13-point lead into halftime.
But the Mustangs (8-12) stayed competitive. They trimmed the deficit down to two points as late as the fourth quarter, but the Ramblers responded. A pair of 3-pointers by Ethan Scaife and Goul, followed by a posterizing dunk by Goul, quickly sent the Ramblers back up by 11, and they ran away from there.
Goul said that there was never any panic or concern when the Mustangs made their run.
“Me and my teammates, we work together,” he said. “They got me the ball and we got moving. We just had to pick it up on defense. Our defense was slowing down a little bit, so we picked it back up and we started rolling.”
Eighteen of Goul’s points came in the second half, scoring eight in the third quarter and 10 in the fourth. He made two 3-pointers and went 7-for-8 from the free throw line.
Lutheran North head coach Jared Bender was satisfied with his team’s offensive output, but he acknowledged that, along with having the game’s leading scorer, the Ramblers simply made more shots.
“Their 24 (Goul) is a really good ballplayer,” Bender said. “He had 27 against us. Trying to stop him more, trying to stop the 3s from that side. Just went into halftime, I was telling my guys we got to keep playing, keep getting to the basket. We shot 30 free throws, so that was obviously working for us. And it opened up our 3-point shooting as well.”
Lutheran North made six 3-pointers and Fraser made nine en route to the 79-point outing, which is a new season-high for points in a game.
It ties into what Norgrove wanted to see from his team in their regular season finale.
“We talked before the week started and said ‘we’re in the tournament right now,’” he said. “We need to get playing at a certain level. We need to get playing with certain expectations. We need to get dialed in. We need to focus less on individuals and more on team.
“We really wanted to come in here against a well-coached team and play well on the road, and it was a tournament type atmosphere for us. We enjoyed it. It was fun.”
Joining Goul in double figures for Fraser was Ethan Scaife, who had 15 with three 3-pointers, and Brady Slone, who made two triples and finished with 11 points. Nine different Ramblers scored.
For Lutheran North, a season-high five players reached double digit scoring. Gio Lutfy led the way with 19, followed by Ben Petersdorf with 15 and Tommy Valenti, Brayden Monroe and Josh Brown who all had 10 points apiece.
“We’re trying to just get confidence in ourselves as a team,” Bender said. “Went through a rough week this week, two games that are hard opponents. But really just trying to get ready for districts on Monday, trying to sure up our defense a little bit. But I thought our offense was really good tonight. They had a good shooting night against us.”
Both teams will now look ahead to their state tournament matchups. Fraser’s run will begin on Monday at Chippewa Valley where they’ll battle Sterling Heights, while Lutheran North will face off against Michigan Collegiate the same night at Country Day.