The Ypsilanti Courier
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Cougars take a bite out of Ypsi
By Dave Merchant, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: February 14, 2008
Key injuries and turnovers held the Ypsilanti Phoenix back from sweeping the season series on the road with Taylor Truman on Friday night. Not having key players in the middle and some untimely errors caused a 52-49 loss in Mega Red action.
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Marvon Sanders started the game out with a triple and put the Phoenix up 3-0. The Cougars would come right back and L'Shane Bynum would hit two baskets in a row to give the home team a 4-3 lead with 6:09 to play in the first quarter. Truman's Travis Valley would add a triple to go up 7-4.
The Cougars, who led 14-5, dominated the first quarter. In the second quarter Sanders would score five of Ypsilanti High's nine points in the quarter. Truman held its own and led 22-14 going into the lockers for the break.
Looking for some life and perhaps getting a bit of a push from Coach Steve Brooks, the Phoenix got a lift in the third quarter from sophomore Connor Heine's six points. Ypsilanti High took the lead 32-31on a basket by Heine with 1:32 left in the third quarter.
The Cougars would bounce back and score to end the third quarter leading 33-32.
In the fourth quarter, Sanders quickly tied the game up at 36 with four minutes to play. He sank two shots from the charity stripe. Then came the turnovers by the Phoenix and the foul shooting by the Cougars.
Ypsilanti committed several key turnovers late in the game. Truman was 9-of-13 from the free-throw line and Ypsilanti was 4-for-4.
Sanders led his team in scoring with 18 points and Torren Burns had 13 points. Bynum had 19 for Truman and Valley had 10 points.
Brooks was not impressed with his team's two losses this week.
"I hate this time of year because of injuries," Brooks said. "We made a lot of mental mistakes and it was disappointing because it came from players who normally don't do these things."
He said that Sanders might have been distracted because of his signing to play football for Eastern Michigan University (which was on Thursday).
"I thought we were the bigger team against Truman," he said. "But we didn't play like it. We settled for jump shots."
Brooks said his team has developed a good rivalry with Truman especially since they knocked his team out of the playoffs in 2006.
Earlier in the week on Tuesday, the Phoenix fell at home to Dearborn Heights Robichaud 47-33. The Bulldogs led 15-12 after the first quarter and 25-16 at the half.
In the second half, the locals were outscored 22-17.
"We had a terrible night shooting," Brooks said.
Heine had eight points for Ypsilanti and Burns had seven points. Lewis Alphon led Robichaud with 15 points.
On Saturday the Phoenix bounced back from a tough week with a 60-38 win over Detroit Cleveland.
"It was a big win for us," he said. "We made some good adjustments and played better in the second half."
Ypsi was up 31-28 at the half but the Phoenix made some adjustments and was able to seal the win in the second half.
Despite missing two of the key big men on the team the locals managed to get the job done against this first year Cleveland Cougar team.
Sanders was high in scoring with 17 points. Burns and Heine both had 10 points and Donald Spencer poured in nine points.
Ypsilanti falls to 8-9 overall and 5-4 in the Mega Red. The big game is at home on Thursday at 4 p.m. against their rivals from Belleville High.
"The administrators from the schools got together and decided it would be best to play this game at 4 p.m.," he said.
Earlier in the year Ypsilanti played at Belleville on a Friday at 4 p.m. because of the possible threat of violence at the game. The game had additional security and in the end it went off without a problem.
Contact Staff Writer Dave Merchant at 697-8255 or dmerchant@heritage.com
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