Northville Mustangs Net Win Over Stevenson Spartans

- Submitted by S. Patrone

The boys’ basketball team was looking to rebound against their opening KLAA divisional loss as they hit the road to battle the Livonia Stevenson Spartans on Tuesday.

The ‘Stangs would not be intimidated in the Spartan’s home court “pit”. The Mustangs started out with an intense man-to-man defense that forced numerous Spartan turnovers. This opening game pressure carried over to the offensive side of the court as the ‘Stangs patiently found driving lanes to the hoop. Senior guard Jeff Gertley started the attack with a strong layup to the hole, however, it was 6-foot-6 sophomore Andrew Meacham that grabbed the offensive board and put it back for the Mustang’s first points of the game. Brett MacDonald grabbed a rebound from a Poterala free throw and nailed the first Mustang points from the arc. Junior Stewart Henzi later scored on the alley-oop offensive rebound and converted on the And1 foul to give the Mustangs the first quarter lead at 14-11.

The Mustangs would not look back the rest of the game as senior forward, Andrew Poterala continued to rack up offensive assists, as well as grabbing five defensive boards. The offense started to click as Meacham scored three times on various backdoor and pick-n-roll conversions. Senior forward Andrew Wright came off the bench and sparked the passing fury, as well as dropping in a quick four points. After Jeff Hewlett drew a defensive charge, Gertley took the inbounds play with 10 seconds left to score on a full court drive layup and a halftime lead of 27-18.

Junior guard Nick Raad scored the first five Mustang points at the start of the third quarter fed by Gertley who had a game-leading six assists. The Spartans fought their way back and outscored the Mustangs 11-13 in the quarter but the ‘Stangs held on to their 38-31 quarter lead.

The Spartans started the fourth quarter with full court pressure and forced the Mustangs to multiple turnovers. The Spartans got hot from the arc and fought their way back to a four point deficit with only three minutes left in the game. With 1:40 left, MacDonald grabbed a Gertley blocked shot attempt and powered his way to the rim to put the Mustangs up by one point with 60 seconds left in the game. The Spartans had the ball with twenty seconds left, but couldn’t drop a six foot shot as Poterala grabbed the rebound to secure the 47-46 Mustang victory.

The Mustang scoring was led by Meacham with 10 points, MacDonald with 9 points and Raad with 7 points. Raad was perfect at the charity stripe with 2-for-2 followed by Henzi at 4-for- 5. Brett MacDonald controlled the defensive boards with six rebounds and Poterala secured five.