Stoney Creek is stifled by Grand Blanc in Division 1 quarterfinal clash
After flying out of the gates in last week’s regional final victory, offense proved difficult to come by early for Stoney Creek in Tuesday evening’s Division 1 quarterfinal.
The Cougars mustered just two points in the first quarter and couldn’t keep pace with Grand Blanc, eventually falling 49-27 to the Bobcats at Calihan Hall.
“They came out with a gameplan, came out hot and pressing us,” Cougars head coach Columbus Williams said. “We just didn’t handle the pressure tonight. It just wasn’t our night with the basketball, and we just kind of threw the ball away a little bit.”
Turnovers, as Williams noted, plagued Stoney Creek, and while the offense wasn’t particularly crisp in the opening minutes from Grand Blanc, either, the Bobcats led 8-2 after the opening quarter.
“I felt we did a decent job,” Williams said of how his team guarded Grand Blanc senior Chelsea Bishop. “She’s an athlete, a Division 1 basketball player, so she’s gonna do what she does. It was just trying to control the other ones. (Bobcats junior Malaya Brown), watching film, she hasn’t made a shot all season, and she hits two 3s in the beginning, and that 8-2 start just got them going.”
Trailing 22-10 after an improved eight minutes, the Cougars (20-6) labored again after halftime and looked set to score two points in the third quarter until a 3-pointer by senior LaPrairie that made it 33-15.
Williams lamented the numerous missed layups, but credited
his team for keeping up the fight considering the Cougars’ best quarter proved to be the fourth when Grand Blanc still had much of its starting lineup out on the floor.
“And that’s what we talked all year about,” Williams said. “Earlier in the year when we lost to Clarkston, I told the girls that just because we’re losing, that doesn’t mean we’re going to quit. That’s the identity I’m trying to instill into these girls, that it doesn’t end until it hits triple-zeroes in the fourth quarter.”
LaPrairie, who scored 32 against Dakota in the regional final, was limited to just 11 points by the Bobcats (22-4), but surpassed 1,000 career points with a free throw in the second quarter.
“Anytime a team sits in a zone all game, it gets tough to try to find those open holes and open spots,” Williams said. “We got a couple sets we were trying to run, but we just couldn’t get Sarah the ball in the beginning. They did a great job of
popping out and paying attention to her, forcing other players to have to put the ball in the basket.”
On his team’s effort to bottle LaPrairie, Bobcats head coach Bob Taylor said, “I thought we did a pretty good job of finding her. We just said, if she’s in your area of the zone, that’s who you guard. They’ve
got some size in there, but they’re younger, and we had some pretty good athletes trying to block their shots. We’re fortunate they didn’t make a lot of shots inside tonight.”
Bishop, committed to Alabama A&M, led all scorers with 20 points, including 9-of-10 free-throw attempts.
Grand Blanc will face
Belleville in Friday’s semifinal at the Breslin Center.
Stoney Creek graduates just LaPrairie and Faith Conniff.
“For a team that went 17-7 last year and didn’t get out of districts, then to make a run all the way to the quarterfinals, now that they see it, they can believe it,” Williams said.