Winning Ways

On the heels of Country Day's loss on Saturday night, the city of Birmingham is home to the two final undefeated boys basketball teams in Oakland County – with DCD being located in Birmingham, the city had three unblemished squads as of just a few days ago. Class A public school, Birmingham Seaholm is 10-0, while Class D private school Birmingham Roeper is 11-0. These two sets of hoopsters have a bit in common too. Each team is led by a standout senior and both squads took home wins on Tuesday night to keep their respective records perfect. Seaholm, whose high-powered offense is headlined by all-state swingman Richaud Pack (committed to Florida International), demolished crosstown foe Birmingham Groves, 73-32. Roeper, a fundamentally sound and defensive minded bunch, with four year starter and two year all-conference stud point guard Ryan Zinser at the helm running the team's offense, defeated arch rival Auburn Hills Oakland Christian, 47-32. Pack dropped 24 points in the Maples 'w' and Zinser recorded his standard sizzle of 18 points (11 of 12 from the free throw line) and seven assists in the Roughriders road victory. For much of the last decade, the two Birmingham schools played an annual non-league game against each other. That is not the case this season and that is very unfortunate for all OC hoop heads, because it would have been a good match-up.  

Hazel Park's Dakota Ogles was ITZ (In Tha ZONE) all night long Tuesday in his team's marathon throwdown with Hamtramck. Ogles had a monster outing, netting 37 points and hauling down 17 boards in the Vikings 88-86 down to the wire-victory over Ham-Town on the road. Ogles is a major reason why HP is 8-2 and one of the front runners for a OAA Blue crown as we sit right now. Hot-shooting Gamal Algahim, Zach Schultz, and rock solid point guard Wesley Ellis are all playing big for the Vikes this season.

Shouts go out to Country Day, who bounced back from Saturday's loss with a hard-nosed comeback win on the road at Taylor Kennedy on Tuesday. The Yellowjackets, taking some lumps of late while missing the services of the soon-to-return 6-11 Amir Williams, fell behind by a t halftime, but rallied in the second half for the 63-56 win, Senior Ray McCallum topped the Yellowjackets in the scorebook with 18 points, sinking a flawless 8-of-8 from the charity stripe. Junior power forward Carter Elliott was integral in the 'W' for DCD, reaching double digits in scoring for the first time in his varsity career and notching a well deserved double-double of 10 points and 12 rebounds.  

Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook also rebounded from a tough loss on Saturday with a hard fought, 51-45 win Tuesday night on the road at Livonia Clarenceville. The Cranes scored a meager 28 points in a loss to Roeper on Saturday. Almost doubling that total on Tuesday, Cranbrook was led by junior Sterling Morrow's game-high 20 points. Sterling's big brother, Steven, added 11 points for head coach Shane Finney's Cranes, who improve to 6-4 on the year.  With the Metro Conference set to disband at season's end, Cranbrook is preparing for a move into the Catholic League in 2011.

A couple of quality wins were in the cards for Novi Detroit Catholic Central and Madison Heights Madison on Tuesday evening as well. CC downed Orchard Lake St. Mary's 63-47 behind another great outing from its junior duo of Shea Kettner and Kyle Cooper. Kettner scored a game-high 19 points and Cooper 14 points and eight boards to lead coach's Bill Dyer's grit-laced group of ballers. Madison won it at the last second at home over Ferndale. Trailing almost the entire contest, junior shooting guard Ashton Curd sank a game winning free throw with under five seconds remaining to lift the Eagles to the dramatic 64-63 win. Tevin Washington headed Madison's scoring attack, putting in 15 points, while Ferndale's Shawn Amiker's tallied a game-high 25 points.