Howell beats Northville, maintains KLAA West girls basketball lead with Brighton next

HOWELL — Maybe it benefited Howell’s girls basketball team that Brighton and Hartland had already played Northville.

After their performances against two state-ranked Livingston County teams, the Mustangs had the Highlanders’ undivided attention when they arrived in Howell Tuesday night.

Northville could not be taken lightly, having separated itself from the other five KLAA West teams that have been dominated in recent years by Livingston County’s three powerhouses.

The Mustangs held a high-scoring, second-ranked Hartland team to 39 points in a loss on Dec. 16 before beating a Brighton team that was ranked sixth at the time by the Detroit Free Press on Jan. 7.

“Brighton’s always a tough team to beat,” Howell senior Maeve St. John said. “When you beat them, you put the rest of the league on notice. They definitely did.”

Knowing the risk of looking past Northville with a game coming up Friday at Brighton, the Highlanders used a strong defensive effort to win 42-28 and remain alone atop the KLAA West.

Howell is 6-0 in the division, Hartland is 5-1, and Brighton and Northville are each 4-2.

The Highlanders are 10-0 against Northville since the formation of the KLAA in 2008-09, but this victory was more meaningful given the Mustangs’ level of play this season.

“How they played Hartland, then going in and beating Brighton, that’s a pretty tough thing to do,” Howell coach Tim Olszewski said. “We worked on it all week, all the things that they do and how they execute and we were just able to work the plan.”

When Northville beat Brighton, it ended an 80-game winning streak by Livingston County’s three teams against the other five in KLAA West games.

Mustangs coach Todd Gudith believes the gap between his team and the traditional division powers has narrowed.

“A little bit,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, the three Livingston County teams are certainly the cream of the crop and the ones we certainly know are going to be at the top of the division year in and year out. They’ve got great programs, they’ve got great youth programs. Yes, teams do lose kids to graduation, but they just seem to keep reloading, these three schools.

“We don’t have that alpha player, that stud college-type athlete. But we’ve just got a bunch of kids who are competitive, hungry and can do a little bit of damage and get to that six to 10 points a night. When we’re all doing that together, when we’re all kind of pitching in, we’re pretty effective.”

Northville’s calling card, like Howell’s, has been its defense. The Mustangs have allowed 36.3 points per game, while Howell has given up 31.8 points during a six-game winning streak that followed a 1-3 start.

So, it was no surprise that points were hard to come by early in the game. Howell led 6-4 after one quarter, holding the Mustangs without a field goal until 6:39 left in the second quarter.

“Four of their points in the first quarter were off free throws,” St. John said. “We felt we were playing good defense. It was just where our offense was coming from. We realized we were missing some shots, so we just started pushing the pace a little bit more, then our offense started to come.”

After back-to-back baskets by junior Eve Tanaskoska gave Northville an 8-6 lead, sophomore Alexis Le scored consecutive baskets to ignite 10-0 Howell stretch to end the first half. The Highlanders shut out the Mustangs for a 7:03 stretch of the second and third quarters.

“Honestly, I think they just scouted us well,” Howell junior Molly Deurloo said. “They knew our plays. We run a similar offense. We had to be more patient on offense; I think we did.”

Howell built a 22-12 lead on a 3-pointer by Caitlyn Rayl with 4:23 left in the third quarter. Northville cut the lead to five points twice before the end of the quarter and trailed 34-28 with five minutes left in the game.

The Highlanders held the Mustangs scoreless over the final 5:46, pulling away by scoring the last eight points.

“We want to try to play a game to about 40 or so,” Gudith said. “We’re certainly capable of getting to that number most nights. It’s just two good defensive teams going after it, so we knew baskets were going to be hard to come by for both teams. Definitely what led to the slow start was the defensive play by both of us.”

St. John had 14 points and six assists, Amelia Storm had eight points, Sophia Daugard had seven points and six rebounds, and Deurloo had six points for Howell.

Susy Heller led Northville with 11 points, seven coming in the third quarter.

Contact Bill Khan at wkhan@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillKhan.

This article originally appeared on Livingston Daily: Howell beats Northville, maintains KLAA West girls basketball lead