The Saline Reporter
A Heritage Newspaper
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Pioneers too much for Saline, win 66-41
Hornets back to .500 in SEC after Pioneers blow game open in 2nd
By Jerry Hinnen, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: January 17, 2008
The Saline boys' basketball team has taken several of the area's most talented teams, including Belleville and Ann Arbor Huron, to the wire this season and entered Tuesday night's home game against second-ranked, 2007 state semifinalists Ann Arbor Pioneer with hopes of repeating the feat.
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Unfortunately for Saline, the Pioneers more than lived up to their billing as the area's most talented team of all, opening up a 17-point lead in the second quarter and rolling to a 66-41 win.
The loss dropped Saline to 4-6 overall and 3-3 in the Southeastern Conference, but none of the Hornets' previous losses was as decisive as Tuesday's.
"Unfortunately, we lost our composure as a team, and that caused us to lose some of our aggressiveness," Saline head coach Jay Plitzuweit said. "That's a reflection on me as a coach. We need to change that and I need to be more composed as a coach."
Saline's Jake Santure scored the game's opening basket and the Hornets led again, 5-4, with 6:04 left in the first quarter following a Kyle Larsen three-point play.
But from there it was all Pioneers. Using a mix of full-court pressure and an intense half-court trap, the visitors held Saline without a point for more than eight minutes spanning the first and second quarters.
The Pioneers pushed the lead to 11-5 at the end of the first and to 16-5 before Larsen finally broke the drought, but Pioneer rattled off the next eight points, as well to take a commanding 24-7 lead with 3:30 to play in the half.
Saline would cut the lead to 28-13 at the break and to 11 points when Larsen scored the first four points of the second half, but Pioneer responded with a 17-2 run over the next five minutes to put the game well beyond Saline's reach.
"Pioneer's a very good team," Plitzuweit said. "They came out and attacked us and were able to expose our weaknesses."
Those weaknesses Tuesday started with the Hornets' ability to control the ball as they finished with 18 turnovers, many of them converted into easy baskets by the Pioneers.
"Defense was not our problem," Plitzuweit said. "It was taking care of the basketball and dealing with their defensive pressure."
Larsen led the Hornets with 20 points and nine rebounds. Jacob Fosdick also finished in double digits with 10 points, but no other Hornet scored more than Tyler Bagbey's three. Drew Green, Santure, Taylor Braham and Zach Lambert each finished with two.
Lambert, a 6-8 backup center, gave Saline's home crowd something to cheer late in the game with a two-handed slam-dunk.
Plitzuweit said his team can grow in defeat if his players are willing to go back to work in practice.
"No one's going to feel bad for us, so we're not going to feel sorry for ourselves," he said. "We're going to grab our lunch bucket, come to practice, and learn to be better basketball players."
Dexter 47, Saline 42
Saline and Dexter were virtual equals for almost all 32 minutes of play in Friday night's match-up in Dexter, but it was the Dreadnaughts who made the most of one subpar Hornet stretch to seize momentum and grab the victory.
Neither team led by more than four points in a back-and-forth game until Dexter closed the third quarter on a 10-2 spurt, turning what had been a 20-19 Saline lead into a 29-22 Saline deficit entering the fourth.
The lead would grow to nine before Salien cut it back to five on four occasions and to four on a Gabe Helmuth basket with 18.4 seconds to play, but it wasn't enough.
"I was happy with the effort the kids gave," Plitzuweit said. "Dexter's a very well-coached team and their kids play hard, but I thought we matched their intensity for loose balls and hustle plays. We were just too passive on offense. We scored when we attacked, but our passiveness caused us problems."
Larsen scored 19 points and grabbed 14 rebounds to lead Saline in both categories. He was followed on the score sheet by Helmuth with six points, Fosdick with five, Cord Trott and Santure with four each, and Green and Bagbey with two each.
Saline 65, Lincoln 50
The Hornets equaled last season's total of three SEC wins just four games into the league schedule with a home victory over the Railsplitters Jan. 8.
Larsen scored 24 points as the Hornets outscored their guests 18-7 in the second period for a big 31-15 lead at halftime.
Fosdick finished with 14 points, followed by Trott with 10, Bagbey with eight, Santure with four, Green with three and Helmuth with two.
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