Northville Boys Basketball Beats Farmington

—Submitted by Bob Lasley

The Northville Mustangs won their second game in a row Friday night defeating the Farmington High School Falcons 44-33 in their opening game in the Northville Holiday Tournament.

Both teams came out as cold as the outside temperature with the score 4-3 in favor of the Falcons midway through the first quarter. The Mustangs took their first lead 10-8 on a Malik Bazzi 3-pointer with approximately 20 seconds remaining, before the Falcons scored at the buzzer to tie the game. The Mustangs got the home fans into game at the outset of the second stanza with break-away dunks by Andrew Meacham and Stewart Henzi to jump ahead 16-10 before settling on a 20-17 lead at the half on a follow-shot by Henzi after he grabbed two consecutive offensive rebounds. Meacham led Northville with 13 points while Joe Hewlett had 3 rebounds.

The Mustangs broke things open in the third quarter as they scored the first 12 points of the half to forge a 32-17 lead. The Northville run was led by Henzi’s 4 points and 3 more rebounds by Hewlett, and the team made 6 out of 7 free throws. Farmington’s only points came with 3:18 remaining, and the quarter ended with Northville on top 33-19.

The large working margin allowed Coach Todd Sander to play every healthy Mustang in the quarter and early in the fourth quarter. However, the Falcons were not going to simply allow Northville to fly away with the victory, and they responded with 7 straight points to cut the lead to 33-26 with 5:16 remaining in the game.

Following a Northville timeout, the Mustangs went on another run of their own as they outscored Farmington 10-0 to push the margin to 43-26 midway through the final quarter. Bazzi led the effort with 6 points and Meacham added 4. The Falcons ended their scoring drought at the 2:48 mark and then scored the next 5 points to reduce Northville’s lead to 43-33 with less than 2 minutes remaining.

After making 1 of 2 free throws in the first half, Northville made 11 of 14 free throws in the second half. Andrew Meacham led the Mustang scoring with 22 points and Joe Hewlett corralled 7 rebounds.

The Mustangs will play Waterford Mott High School Saturday, Dec. 29 at 7 p.m.