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3/11/2010--Basketball
North Farmington finally gets past St. Mary's in districts
Raiders avenge losses to Eaglets in districts in three previous years
By KEITH DUNLAP
Of The Oakland Press
WEST BLOOMFIELD — North Farmington may have entered Wednesday's Class A district semifinal against Orchard Lake St. Mary's with nine more wins than the Eaglets, but there understandably were still some anxious thoughts for the Raiders.
Combine the facts that St. Mary's had beaten the Raiders the last three years in districts, are steeped in tradition and have had previously-injured senior point guard Gary Hunter back in the lineup in the last couple of weeks, and you can see why North Farmington was sweating hard before the game even started.
“I was nervous,” North Farmington senior point guard Kyle Vinales said. “That was probably the first game where I was actually nervous coming into it the whole year.”
At the end of the game, all that nervousness turned into a huge sigh of relief, after the Raiders broke open a close game in the fourth quarter to earn a 71-59 victory over St. Mary's.
“Over the 42 years I've coached, it's nice to beat great programs and great people,” North Farmington head coach Tom Negoshian said. “(St. Mary's head coach) George Porritt is a great person. He's a better person than he is even as a coach. When you beat people like that, there's credibility. We play in a great league during the regular season, and I think that helped us tonight.”
The Raiders were able to outlast the Eaglets, thanks to another brilliant individual performance from Vinales, good contributions from the supporting cast of players and stellar free-throw shooting.
Following up on his 47-point outburst in Monday's first-round win over West Bloomfield, Vinales scored 29 points, most of which came at the free-throw line. Vinales went 17 of 21 from the free-throw line, which helped the Raiders as a team go 29 of 36 from the foul line in the game.
There was more than just Vinales, however, as junior Urbane Bingham scored 13 points, senior Chris Stewart scored 10 points and senior Tommy Doyle added nine points for the Raiders (15-7).
The leading scorer of the game was St. Mary's junior Allen Robinson, who showed why he could be one of the area's best players next year, pouring in 33 points in defeat for the Eaglets.
Just getting back into the swing of things after suffering a broken wrist during football season, Hunter added 12 points for St. Mary's.
North Farmington held a 42-32 lead with 4:22 left in the third quarter, but the Eaglets stormed back, going on a 17-5 run to take a 49-47 lead with 16.8 seconds left in the third quarter.
In the fourth quarter though, the Raiders separated themselves. Leading 55-54 with 4:21 left, the Raiders cranked up their defense and hit free throws, which helped them go on an 11-1 run to take a 66-55 lead with 1:20 remaining in the game.
“I thought our kids, when we had the lead, were playing scared and lackadaisical,” Negoshian said. “We kind of got caught up in it. We got up by 8 or 10, and then we'd get silly. To their credit, they kept attacking in the correct way. In the fourth quarter, we finally started relaxing and doing some things defensively.”
As a result, North Farmington will play a district title game and a rivalry game all rolled into one on Friday, when the Raiders will meet Farmington/Farmington Hills Harrison at 7 p.m. at West Bloomfield.
St. Mary's finished an uncharacteristically poor season at 5-16, completing a year where the Eaglets struggled to find consistency and continuity with injuries and other factors.
“They made that little spurt at the five-minute mark and it got away from us,” St. Mary's head coach George Porritt said.
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