Northville girls get it done vs. short-handed Skyline in holiday hoops

Brad Emons, hometownlife.com Published 12:24 a.m. ET Dec. 29, 2017

Mustangs take down Eagles' 'Iron Five,' 35-29

Sometimes being just O.K. is good enough.

And that was the case Thursday night as Northville repeated at home as the Holiday tournament girls basketball champion with a 35-29 win over a depleted Ann Arbor Skyline squad, which suited up only five players.

"We're 6-2 and we know we can compete with just everybody on our schedule if we're playing at our maximum capacity," Northville coach Todd Gudith said. "And that's what it's going to take to finish out the season."

The Mustangs won despite 20 turnovers and 15-of-43 shooting from the floor (34.8 percent).

"Taking care of the basketball, taking high quality shots and trying to get to the rim more instead of settling for outside shots all the time," Gudith said of his team's laundry list of things to improve upon.

Nine different players for Northville scored led by senior point-guard Kendall Dillon, who in her fourth season on the varsity, finished with a team-high eight points. Sophomore center Morgan Thompson added six.

"All those seniors are three- and four-year varsity players," Gudith said. "Games like tonight – when it's kind of a drag on everybody – you kind of need those kids to step up and use their leadership to take over."

Dillon is one of three senior starters returning off last year's 17-4 KLAA Central Division championship team along with Roan Haines and Jasmin Prince.

"The transition has been really good," Dillon said. "We were a little bit shaky at first, but once we started playing more together in practice and in games, I think we all started to mesh pretty well. We've got some young players, but the older players are bringing it along pretty good, so it's going well."

Northville never trailed in the game leading 6-5 after one quarter, 19-15 at halftime and 27-17 after three quarters.

"I think just think we tried to tire them out as much as we could since they had no bench, I guess," Dillon said. "We just tried to really take it to them in the first half. But they did really well for having only five players out there, so I give them credit."

Turnovers have been the biggest issue so far for the Mustangs.

"I think we just need to take care of the ball better, focus on passing and dribbling better," Dillon said. "I think our shots were a little off. We had trouble attacking the zone (defense) from the outside. I just think we need to break them apart a little bit more so they come out and man defense. Hopefully we get the shots straightened out in the future. We saw a 1-3-1 last week against Hartland and that was pretty tough up against them. Yes, zones are an issue."

Skyline (1-9) dressed only six players in a 38-36 opening round victory Dec. 27 over South Lyon East, but lost another player to injury for the final.

Coach Johnnie Horne has a 10-player roster, but that number was cut in half during the two-day Northville Holiday Tournament.

"Two are hurt," he said. "We have a softball player . . . that's her number one sport, so she let us know coming in she couldn't play here this week. Then we had a couple on vacation."

Horne opted to go with just five players instead of dipping down into the JV ranks.

"The reason I didn't is because we had eight JV girls playing," he said. "And then won (the semifinal), so they were playing for the championship today. So I didn't want to leave her (coach Jakeyla Ford) with five or six players on my account, so that's the reason why I didn't."

Freshman Lauren Courtright paced the Eagles with nine points, while sophomore Renee Faulkner added eight. Twin sister Janee Faulker chipped in with six.

"I thought we did exceptional," Horne said. "South Lyon East is an exceptional team and Northville is a tough team. I was actually looking forward to this game . . . I want to be careful because I don't want to say we struggled the first eight, nine games. We did, but we had bright spots, so coming in we said, 'Let's see where at against a Northville team that's been pretty successful over the years.' And I thought we handled ourselves pretty well."

Horne took all of his allotted six timeouts to give his "Iron Five" some timely breathers.

"I tried to save the timeouts when I saw them gasping for air or when there was a dead ball situation where they gave me everything for loose ball, just to say, 'I've got your back,'" he said. "Those are the times I wanted to use them and I used them all."

bemons@hometownlife.com

Twitter: @BradEmons1