Detroit Renaissance torches Cass Tech, 56-25, in girls Public School League championship
Detroit Renaissance put an exclamation point on the Public School League portion of its Michigan high school girls basketball season Sunday afternoon by routing Detroit Cass Tech, 56-25, at the Wayne State Fieldhouse.
The Phoenix (18-0) successfully defended their title with a dominating performance.
It was a far cry from the earlier meeting this season between the two schools, when Renaissance eked out a 60-56 victory over the Technicians (10-9).
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Renaissance's guard tandem of Amayah Espanol and Christian Sanders led the way with 15 and 13 points, respectively, to help the Phoenix move into the Operation Friendship championship game 6:30 p.m. Thursday; they'll face Ann Arbor Richard (17-3), representing the Detroit Catholic League after beating Farmington Hills Mercy, 41-27, on Saturday.
Espanol, a senior who has an offer from Division II Davenport, was also a catalyst on the defensive end as the Phoenix forced Cass Tech into 23 turnovers with their trapping full-court defense.
“I think we stayed together the whole game, brought a lot of energy on defense and just finished,” Espanol said. “We just wanted to pressure them into making them make mistakes that they don’t normally make and get them to turn the ball over.”
Thanks to eight points from Espanol and six from Sanders, Renaissance led by 16, 29-13, at halftime despite shooting just 12-for-35 from the field while committing 10 turnovers.
Meanwhile, turnovers were the problem for Cass, as the Technicians coughed it up 15 times and shot 6-for-26 over the first 16 minutes.
“We knew they had only one strong ball-handler in Maya Anderson, so my main focus was to take her out of her hands and see if they could make a play,” first-year Renaissance coach Deshaun Wood said.
And by the time third quarter had ended, the Phoenix were in complete control, 40-20.
The Phoenix jumped out to an 11-0 lead at the outset before Cass' Kayla Mount answered with six straight points of her own to close out the first quarter.
“That was the main focus this game was to get a strong start because playing in a building like this, the festivities, the hype-ness. ... We wanted to be settled early,” Wood said. “We wanted to settle down and play fast from the start. We focused on that all week.”
Wood also burned three timeouts during the first half to make sure his team remained focused.
“That’s part of competing,” he said. “I think there were some things we could have done better. I felt we could have had the game where we wanted it and play a little faster, but we could (get) it to where we wanted it and we were fine the rest of the game.”
Cass shot only 11-for-51 from the floor, but, again, turnovers.
“Today, if we could have just valued the basketball a little more, we would have gotten a few better opportunities at the basket so we could score the ball,” Cass coach LaTonya Tate said. “The game is putting the ball in the hole and keeping your opponent from scoring it. Renaissance did that and they had 56 points and we only had 25. Have to value the ball.”
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Renaissance torches Cass Tech, 56-25, in girls PSL title game
