Lahser Boys Avenge Loss to Lake Orion in Home Blowout

Before their focus turned to more important things — namely today's snow day, members of Lahser High School's boys basketball team handed Lake Orion their first league loss Thursday in convincing fashion.

Led by junior guard Armand Cartwright's 18 points and 9 assists, the Knights defeated the rival Dragons 67-40 before an inspired home crowd. The win avenged a 20-point defeat at Lake Orion on Jan. 24 that the team did not easily forget.

"We knew we came in and didn't perform our best when we played them at their place," Knights Head Coach Duane Graves told Miprepzone.com. "We wanted to make sure we came out tonight to give them our best game. That was the focus of our practice all week. We had to play hard for all 32 minutes."

The Knights (11-3, 4-2) climbed within one game of Lake Orion (5-1) in the OAA Blue stadings. They also continue to ride a wave of momentum since that loss to the Dragons that also translated into double-digit victories at Berkley and Seaholm.

Practices since that loss have indeed picked up in intensity, Andrew Gikas said.

"Since then, we learned that the way to beat (Lake Orion) is in our practices and how we execute, and we've had really good practices all week," the senior forward said in an interview Wednesday.

Lahser never trailed in the game and jumped out to sizeable leads at the end of the first quarter (22-8), and at the half (41-18), Miprepzone.com reported.

Knights center Yante Maten finished with 16 points 14 rebounds, and 5 blocked shots, and guard Khalil Gracey had 9 points and 8 assists. Lahser also had solid contributions from senior forward Kyle Riley (6 points, 6 rebounds) and a season-high 8 points from junior guard Xazvior Reyolds.

The team faces Rochester on Tuesday in a OAA-league crossover game at 7 p.m.

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