BOYS BASKETBALL: Stoney Creek steals one away from Troy
BY DAN STICKRADT
CORRESPONDENT
dan.stickradt@northoaklandsports.com
Twitter: @LocalSportsFans
ROCHESTER HILLS — Perhaps Rochester Stoney Creek really did become the Grinch of this Christmas season on Tuesday night.
The Cougars clawed back from a 14-point, third-quarter deficit to sink Troy in overtime, 62-59, in an OAA crossover contest.
“I think we did steal one,” smiled Stoney Creek coach Steve Norgrove. “We were down 14 and we fought back. The kids never panicked. We didn’t give up. Being down that much when shots weren’t falling, we could have very easily folded. But we fought back and found a way to win. We were resilient.”
Unbeaten Stoney Creek outscored Troy 6-3 in the four-minute overtime session to win its third straight to open the 2015-16 campaign.
The Cougars trailed 52-41 with 3:15 remaining in the fourth quarter before staging its late comeback.
A 12-1 run in the final three minutes was capped by senior guard Spencer Hollomon’s four-point play with 51.6 ticks left that tied the game at 56-56 and forced overtime.
Senior forward JP Sinacola, normally a three-point shooting ace, did not sink a three but finished with a game-high 21 points to go along with five rebounds, four assists and three steals. Hollomon added 14 points on the strength of a trio of three-pointers, senior forward Ben Reiter chipped in with 12 points, seven rebounds, five assists and three blocks, and junior point guard Tanner Dean twined eight points for the Cougars (3-0).
“I like the way our top players responded,” said Norgrove. “JP is normally a lights-out three-point shooter but he didn’t make any tonight. He realized that the shots weren’t falling, but he played aggressive tonight, made nine of 10 free throws and scored 21 constantly thing the ball to the basket. That’s the sign of maturity. Hollomon was the hot hand outside and that’s who we looked for on the perimeter.
“We made some adjustments defensively in the second half, forced them out away from the basket a little bit with our zone and it seem to work,” continued Norgrove. “We were a completely different team in the second. That’s when we started to make our comeback. We cut it to six at the end of the third quarter. We were in the game at that point.”
Sophomore gaurd Jason Dietz scored 12 points with five boards to pace Troy, while sophomore guard Leon Ayers, senior forward Matt McCabe and sophomore center Danny Sully (eight rebounds) all scored 10 points for Troy. Isaiah Smith contributed six assists.
The Colts, who returned only two players that saw significant minutes last season, led 14-10 at the end of the first quarter and 31-19 at the half.
Troy scored the first bucket of the third quarter to go up by 14 points (33-19) but could never fully pull away.
“We need to learn to take care of the basketball a lot better and play four quarters,” sighed veteran Troy coach Gary Fralick. “I thought they did a good job defensively on us with the zone for a while, then we started to attack better. We built it back to seven points with only a could of minutes left and then they scared the heebie-jeebies out of us. We rushed some shots and didn’t make good decisions with the basketball.
“Perhaps I should have had another time out down the stretch, settle them down some and get them to understand what we were trying to do,” continued Fralick. “Hopefully we can learn from this loss. We are still a young team with not a toni guys that played a lot last season.”
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