Northville Girls Basketball Loses to South Lyon East

—Submitted by Coach Todd Gudith

The Northville Mustangs Girls Basketball team ran into a a determined South Lyon East squad and dropped a 53-46 decision to the Cougars. East, which opened in 2007, had never beaten the Mustangs, but they sure picked a good time to do so and upset Northville's hopes of trying to win the division. East came into the game 5-5 overall and 0-4 in division play while Northville was 8-2 overall and 3-1 in the division, just one game back of division leader Novi. 

East came out hot right out of the gate as sophomore Gabby Bird outscored the entire Mustang team with 11 points in the 1st quarter as East took a 15-10 lead at the end of one quarter of play. Northville's defense would step up in the 2nd quarter allowing just four Cougar points and Northville rallied back to take a 20-19 lead at the half. The third quarter was a back and forth affair as neither team could break free. Northville's usually aggressive full-court defense didn't produce the turnovers and easy scoring opportunities it usually does. East was able to handle the pressure and turned the ball over just eight times on the night while managing to shot 47% from the field. In the fourth quarter East took a commanding 9-point lead with less than four minutes to play, but Northville fought back relying on the three-point-shot. Junior Gabby Mencotti made two 3-point shots in the quarter while scoring 10 of her team's high 15 points. The Mustangs were able to cut the deficit to three with 58 seconds to play, but couldn't force another turnover and had to send East to the foul line where they sealed the game.  

Defensively we didn't have enough effort and just get after it. Our team hadn't given up more than 36 in the previous four division games and to give up 53 is just us not being into it. Hats off to East, they outplayed us all game long and deserved to win. They kept making plays. I'm not sure if our team overlooked them because of their record coming into the game, but I've said all along that our division is too competitive to take a night off and expect to win. It's disappointing because we controled our destiny within the division, but now we have to win out and get some help to overtake Novi. The real question will be how our group responds from this.  Northville, 8-3 overall, 3-2 division, play at Salem Friday.