FeedsRomulus falls in regional opener
The Romulus Eagle varsity basketball team had a door wide open for possibilities this season.
The team won a piece of the conference won the district and was well on its way to making a Cinderella run in the state regional competition.
Unfortunately for the Eagles, that door was slammed shut last Tuesday when they ran up against Detroit Redford in the opening round of the regional play at Ypsilanti Lincoln High School.
The Romulus Eagle basketball squad hasn’t been easy to outplay over the last month but somehow Detroit Redford found a way. The Eagles struggled offensively and never found their rhythm in the 58-52 regional loss.
The other factor was the force of one player.
Redford’s Corperryale Harris-winner of the Mr. Basketball Award-was the difference-maker. If the University of Michigan recruit wasn’t slam-dunking or laying in baskets or hitting jumpers and faders, he was draining NBA-distance triples like they were going out of style. He finished with 41 points and 12 rebounds for the Huskies and he did so with defenders hanging all over him.
“He’s the best we ever played against since I’ve been here,” said Romulus Coach Nate Oats. “I thought Laron (Rogers) did a really good job on him. To give up 41 out of 58 to one guy is definitely a problem but our overall team defense wasn’t that bad it was more of our offense that was the problem, I thought.”
The Eagles struggled in all facets of the offense. Baskets were hard to come by.
Oats said he went against the initial strategy to shrinking up the rotation in favor of playing everyone on the 14-man roster in an attempt to spark the offense. In the end, he had 10 players score. Nobody scored in double figures. Three players—Dominique Buckley, Devin Searcy and Valdez Green—scored nine. The next closest was Martell Anderson’s seven and Rogers’ six.
“Just about every one of the 14 guys on the team, at some point in the year, has come alive on offense and we were struggling on offense,” Oats said. “We couldn’t put the ball in the hole and we just tried to find somebody who could.”
Romulus kept it close in the first. Senior Rod Walker put the Eagles on the board first when he split a pair from the line. Then Searcy tipped in Buckley’s shot for a 3-1 lead for the team’s largest and last lead of the game.
From the 6:31 mark of the first when he hit a giant triple for the Huskies to take the lead until the final buzzer it was the Harris show.
Green nailed a triple at the end of the first to knot the game at 11 and that’s how the opening frame would finish.
Harris went on an 11-2 run to open the second quarter that would give the Huskies a 27-19 halftime lead.
Romulus came out in the new half and went on a 10-2 spree, knotting the contest at 29, but Harris answered with another big three and a Romulus turnover sent him on a slam-dunk mission.
Buckley retaliated with back-to-back triples to make it a 37-35, Redford, game. Romulus only trailed by two, 39-37 at the end of three.
Buckley nailed his third triple of the night with 12 seconds left and Green followed with his third to make it a four-point game, 56-52, with two seconds left. A foul sent Harris to the line where he put the game away, 58-52.
“I thought we played scared; I don’t get it,” Oats said. “We put together the toughest schedule in the state to prepare ourselves for big games like this.
“I thought the last 14 games we really got it together,” he added. “I really thought we were starting to roll. We just got tight and didn’t make plays in a big game. I feel bad for the four seniors.”
The team will say goodbye to Walker, Searcy, Dwayne Edwards and Antoine James. That leaves plenty of experience to return next year.
“We have 10 guys back and they all have experience in big games,” Oats said. “I’m really looking forward to coaching next year’s team. I think they got 10 guys with really great attitudes that really want to work hard. We’re going to be really, really good.”
