Senior Brandon Pokley stood at the three point line and shot at the basket. The ball went through and the Wolves lead over Pontiac Central increased to 40 points, activating a running clock for the remaining 11 minutes of the game.
From that moment the Chiefs pushed forward to close the gap, but Clarkston defense continued to block them from the net, ending the game, 62-26.
‘Defensively, we played better than we usually do. We tried to lock it up and played a pretty good ‘D,?? said Senior Brandon Verlinden. ‘We missed a few drops, but offensively we still have things to work on.?
Verlinden and Tyler Scarlett were the key players to the defensive line.
‘Verlinden and Scarlett are as good as we have ever had on defense ? off the ball and they understand the way we do things,? said Clarkston Head Coach Dan Fife. ‘We have had a lot of good defense, but they are up there with them with the way they drop and they understand where their position is.?
Another key for the boys and Fife was worrying about their selves and not knowing Pontiac Central’s record.
‘I honestly don’t look at the papers much during the basketball season so I didn’t know they were 0-5 before the game,? said Fife. ‘I am more concerned with our kids? effort and making sure no matter where we play, either at practice or a game, we compete all the time the way we should compete. We had an experienced team coming back and they had no one coming back.
‘It’s tough to play in those games after a while because you get sloppy, careless and lose your focus. Our kids maintained and we got a good performance off our bench again tonight ? (Jonathan) Baenziger, (Tom) Ronk, (Jared) Lawrence.?
The Wolves remained in control of the board for the entire game from the moment the ball was thrown into the air and Matt Kamieniecki tapped it to Scarlett.
Pokley shot a three-pointer to put Clarkston on the board. The ball turned around to the Chiefs and Pierre Quinn tied the game.Verlinden broke the tie with a shot for three points and started the Wolves 19-point run.
‘They always come out and play hard,? said Staton about Central. ‘But we came out and got the best of them this time.?
Before going into the second half of the game, the Wolves went for another run – this time of 16 points and kept Central down before closing the half, 39-11.
Pokley led the Wolves with 27 points, 12 points from 3-point throws. More high scorers from the game were Kamieniecki (8) and Verlinden (7).
Pontiac Central’s leading scorers were Quinn (11) and Torian Curry with six points.
The boys play at Oak Park (2-4) on Friday. JV begins at 5:30 p.m., varsity follows.
They played Southfield on Tuesday. Check the Wolfpack Update on www.ClarkstonNews.com to see how the boys did.