ROCHESTER – Trent LaGarde’s buzzer beater gave the host Rochester Adams Highlanders a 57-54 win over the West Bloomfield Lakers Monday night.
Curtis Brittin’s putback had tied the game 54-54 with 7.2 seconds to play. Adams called a timeout, got the ball in LaGarde’s hands, and LaGarde dribbled the length of the floor, pulled up for a 20-footer straight on and watched the ball drop through the net as the clock ticked down to zero.
LaGarde carried the Highlanders in the second half. After getting just two points in the first half, LaGarde exploded for 23 points in the second half, including five 3-pointers.
“I knew that we were going to win that game because no matter what happened in the game, he just had this quiet confidence in his eyes,” Adams head coach Isaiah Novak said. “When you can look at your senior captain and see that in his eyes, it gives not only the coaching staff but all his teammates a ton of confidence.”
The game was tight throughout. After Adams opened the game with a 9-2 run, West Bloomfield called timeout and then went on a 7-0 run to tie the game 9-9 late in the first quarter. From then on, neither team led by more than four points as they dueled back and forth.
“We fought our way back. That’s important. We talked about not going down by seven and not hanging your head and fighting back, and we showed that. So I’m proud of that,” Lakers head coach Arnette Jordan said.
Brittin and Corey Pittman did most of the damage for the Lakers. Their penetration was a majority of West Bloomfield’s offense. Pittman finished with 22 points and Brittin had 14 points and six rebounds. One or the other made the big shots to keep the Lakers close. Adams spread things around in the first half with a handful of players scoring roughly equal amounts led by Zeke Wilson and Cannon Flynn with six points each. But in the second half, it was LaGarde’s show.
The win for Adams (4-12, 2-6 OAA Red) snaps a seven game losing streak dating back more than a month. The Highlanders have faced many challenges this season but picked up a much-needed win.
“It’s a tough thing to go what we’ve gone through this year in that we lost a lot players early on because the football team went to state semifinals. We had two kids transfer to U of D midseason. That put us at eight kids at one point. We ended up adding six players at the end of December. So you can imagine with all those moving pieces that stem from that. But they’re such good, hard-working, selfless kids that it has allowed us to be positive throughout all of it. And that’s what Im’ most proud about,” Novak said.
Adams travels to North Farmington on Thursday for another league game.
West Bloomfield (5-10, 2-5 OAA Red) has now dropped five straight. The Lakers resume league play on Friday with a road game against Clarkston.
Photo gallery from West Bloomfield at Rochester Adams in OAA Red boys basketball action
“We just made too many mental mistakes. My hat’s off to the Adams team – the stuff they’ve gone through and to come back and still keep fighting, my hat’s off to them. They deserve that win,” Jordan said. “It’s a learning lesson, but it’s still a loss. … We have to do better, and I put it on me. I have to get them better.”
