Second Half Defense Propels Clarkston Past Fenton

For a quarter of Monday's district basketball opener for , it appeared that the short-handed Tigers would hang with perennial power Clarkston.

After falling behind 30-15, Fenton, playing without leading scorer Ryan Hickoff who was injured in the final game of the regular season, switched to a zone defense in the second quarter, forced Clarkston into some poor shots and closed the half on a 13-4 run to cut the deficit to six at the half.

"We changed to a matchup zone to try and throw them off a little bit, and it did," said Fenton coach Tim Olszewski. "It caused some momentary confusion, but they seemed to figure it out pretty well at halftime."

Although the Wolves had some trouble getting good looks in the second quarter, Clarkston coach Dan Fife said his team's adjustments at halftime were more at the defensive end. Getting in passing lanes and closing out quickly on shooters led to forced turnovers and opportunities to run and get transition buckets, which helped Clarkston (16-5) outscore Fenton (17-4) 22-2 in the game and take control in the 68-42 win.

"At halftime, we didn't really make an adjustment on offense," Fife said. "On defense, we thought we gave them a lot of easy looks in the second quarter. We were gambling instead of playing good, sound defense."

Clarkston built an early lead by going to big man Marcus Hardy. Hardy scored 12 points in the first quarter, making six of his seven shot attempts, to help the Wolves start the game on a 10-0 run.

Fenton began to close the gap in the second quarter, sparked by point guard Eric Mowery. Mowery converted on a 3-point play, then found Charlie Herzog for a layup. Three-pointers by Dylan Hickoff and Devan Beagle helped Fenton get as close as four before a late first half bucket by Clarkston put them up six at the half.

In the third quarter, Clarkston's shooters got going. Matt Rodgers and Nick Tatu hit back-to-back threes, then Tatu converted a layup after a Clarkston steal to help the Wolves stretch the lead to 15. The defensive pressure made it tough

"There just wasn't enough in the tank for us to handle that type of pressure," Olszewski said. "It caused our shots to be hurried."

Mowery led Fenton with 11 points and Dylan Hickoff had nine. Without Ryan Hickoff in the lineup, Fenton's offense got out of synch at times.

"You take away your leading scorer, vocal leader and leading rebounder, and mentally the kids see that their leader is out," Olszewski said. "All of a sudden guys used to spotting Ryan or Dylan for a few minutes are playing heavy minutes, and we got a little uncomfortable at times. He definitely doesn't score 26 points and answer whatever the final deficit was, but mentally it did have an impact not having him out there."

Fife, who scouted Fenton on film before the game, knew that the loss of Hickoff hurt the team quite a bit.

"I don't think for a second they're not a hell of a lot better team with their kid No. 10 (Hickoff) in there," Fife said. "They're a better team than that with him out there."