Pinckney's preseason girls basketball optimism not diminished by opening loss to Dearborn
PINCKNEY — Coach Tom Reason maintains Pinckney could have its best girls basketball team in years.
One night doesn’t change that.
He believes the things that went wrong during a 40-30 season-opening loss to Dearborn are fixable, not a sign of things to come for the Pirates.
“No, not at all,” Reason said when asked if one game diminished his view of his team. “That’s a huge school. Dearborn’s a pretty big school. Those girls played really, really hard; hats off to them. They played harder than us, which is really disappointing. That’s my fault as a coach. I pride myself on our teams playing really hard every night.”
Dearborn is the 20th-largest school in Michigan with an enrollment of 2,006. Pinckney has 705 students.
The Pioneers were picked to finish fourth in the KLAA East by league coaches, a division which includes Belleville and Wayne Memorial, teams likely to be state Division 1 contenders.
Pinckney junior Audrey Wardlow concurred with her coach that too much shouldn’t be read into the Pirates’ opening-night performance.
“We had a rough night,” she said. “It’s our first game. That’s really all it is. We’re definitely going to come back and play more as a team and not as individuals. I think that will definitely help.”
To be successful this season, the Pirates will need to develop scoring options other than Wardlow.
Wardlow was Pinckney’s leading scorer last season when then-senior Kailey Lambert provided reliable complementary scoring for the Pirates.
Wardlow had nearly half of Pinckney’s points Monday, scoring 14. Brielle Reason was the second-leading scorer with five points.
Wardlow said she can’t put too much pressure on herself to carry the load for Pinckney.
“I did coming into this game, but being with my team, they just told me to calm down, to focus up,” she said. “That’s what I do. They really pushed me and helped me to be more of a team player like that.”
Coach Reason said that if Pinckney runs its offense more patiently than it did against Dearborn’s zone defense Monday, the points will come for other players.
“When you only average one pass per possession, whoever gets it shoots it, nobody’s helping anybody,” he said. “They were applying a ton of pressure. The way you defend that is you make them defend against screening and cutting and things of that nature.
“We threw it to somebody and they shot it. And we threw it to somebody else and they shot it. It’s just these one-shot possessions. That’s exactly what their defense is meant to do, make you take bad shots — and it worked tonight.”
Pinckney never led and Wardlow didn’t score until there was 1:40 left in the first half, but she had six points before the end of the half. The final three came on a 3-point play with 0.9 seconds on the clock, cutting the Pioneers’ lead to 16-15 at the break.
“I was definitely getting a little frustrated,” Wardlow said. “When that happens, I just want to play harder, play for my team.”
The Pirates pulled even at 21-21 on a basket by Wardlow with three minutes left in the third quarter before Dearborn regrouped and regained control of the game with a 15-2 run.
“We’re not on the same page yet,” Reason said. “But, all in all, our kids played hard. We’ve got four sophomores up. We just need a few more days in the gym. Unfortunately, we don’ get that, because we play again Wednesday.”
Milford 27, Fowlerville 23
Milford emerged victorious in a defensive battle for new coach Tim Olszewski, who spent the past eight seasons at Howell.
Sophomore McKenna Maybee had eight points, sophomore Mariah Kirby six points and senior Angelle Haan eight rebounds for Fowlerville.
Boys basketball
Redford Thurston 77, Brighton 69
Brighton junior Cole Rooney had a big performance in his first varsity game, scoring a team-high 17 points to go with eight rebounds and three assists.
Senior Ben Kocab had a career-high 15 points, shooting 3-for-5 from 3-point range.
Senior Grant Hetherton had a career-high 13 points, while sophomore Ty Langenderfer had 11 points and six assists in his varsity debut for the Bulldogs. Langenderfer was 3-for-3 from beyond the arc.
Contact Bill Khan at wkhan@gannett.com. Follow him on X @BillKhan
This article originally appeared on Livingston Daily: Pinckney's preseason girls basketball optimism not diminished by loss
