Lakeland chasing LVC leaders with win over Walled Lake Northern

PREP GIRLS BASKETBALL

Lakeland’s Aubrin Miller, right, moves past Walled Lake Northern’s Savannah Scott during the Battle of Bogie Lake Road on Friday. Miller had a team-high 15 points to help lead the Eagles to a 43-33 win. KEN SWART — FOR MEDIANEWS GROUP

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By Michael J Wallwork

For MediaNews Group

WHITE LAKE >> The White Lake Lakeland Eagles led from start to finish, knocking off the Walled Lake Northern Knights 43-33 in a key Lakes Valley Conference contest Friday evening.

The game was a defensive battle from the start. The teams are very familiar with each other, and it showed from the start.

“We’ve played them (Walled Lake Northern) three times last year, twice this year. We know each other so well. We have a lot of experienced players that came back, so we all know each other. I’m calling out their plays. They’re calling out our plays. That’s what it is when you play a rival like that,” Lakeland head coach Mike Leitheim said. “We just know each other so well, and both teams work so hard that it’s tough to get a good look sometimes.”

Neither team made a field goal in the first four minutes of the game, and the score was just 15-8 Lakeland at halftime.

“Lakeland basketball doesn’t have to be pretty,” Leitheim said. “We’re about whatever we can do to have one more point than the opponent at the end of the game. The first half, I went in the locker room, in a 15-8 game, and we all agreed that was beautiful basketball, because we know that sometimes we have to win that way, and we’re used to winning that way.”

Lakeland kept driving toward the basket, and in the fourth quarter in particular it finally paid off. Whereas the Knights were able to stop the Eagles and force them into bad shots in the first half, by the fourth quarter, those Lakeland drives started to draw fouls, and the Eagles made their foul shots, going 12-for-16 from the free throw line in the fourth quarter to hold the Knights. Aubrin Miller did most of the damage, making 8 of 10 free throws in that final stanza, and canning 10 of 12 on the night.

Walled Lake Northern hung around much of the evening. After getting down 13-2 by the middle of the second quarter, the Knights started chipping away. Twice they had the margin down to a single possession early in the fourth quarter, but they could never quite catch up.

Amal Younes led all scorers with 21 points for Walled Lake Northern, but the Knights couldn’t get anyone else going to help offset Lakeland’s balance.

“Right now, we’re just not doing a very good job of executing a game plan and paying attention to the little details that we need to be paying attention to to beat good teams like that. Early in the year, we did,” Knights head coach Joshua Pees said. “We’re just not there right now. We’ve got to get back to the way we were at the beginning of the year.”

Miller led Lakeland with 15 points. Alena Tiernan chipped in 10 points and Peyton Baer added seven points for the Eagles.

With the win, Lakeland improves to 9-3 overall and 7-1 in the LVC to maintain its chase of South Lyon (11-1, 8-1), who inched back ahead for the league lead by a half-game with a victory over Milford Friday.

The Eagles will continue league play on Tuesday when they host South Lyon East.

“I’m just really proud. Our senior group has been so tough. We’re seniors and juniors. We’re experienced,” Leitheim said. “We’ve been through the grind, so it’s just these are the kinds of games they love to be a part of.”

Walled Lake Northern slips to 8-5 overall and 4-3 in league play.

“You don’t lose. I tell the girls all the time we don’t lose games, we only learn. So this was a good game to learn from, correct our mistakes, and come back and get them next time,” Pees said.

The Knights travel to South Lyon on Tuesday for another important league contest. Walled Lake Northern handed South Lyon its only conference loss earlier in the year.