High School Hoops: Falcons Get First Conference Loss in Overtime

Overtime has not been kind to the boys varsity basketball team.

Entering Tuesday, the Falcons had gone to an extra session twice and lost both games. The trend continued on Tuesday night at Royal Oak High School, as Rochester fell in a see-saw battle to Royal Oak, 63-57, to snap the team's three-game winning streak.

After storming back from a big deficit late in the fourth quarter, Rochester was held off the board in the four-minute overtime session, resulting in the team’s first conference loss of the season.

“We need to find a way to start winning overtime games,” Rochester head coach John Pleasant said. “It was a tough loss, but we really didn’t deserve to win. We made a lot of errors.”

Among the errors were three technical fouls on the visiting Falcons. Pleasant, junior guard Taylor Perry and senior guard Bill Klotz were all issued technicals at different points during the game.

“I thought some technicals killed us,” Perry said. “That’s six free-throws right there. Then there were a lot of missed layups. We had some bad defensive plays at the end, too.”

Royal Oak had an 11-point lead with less than three minutes remaining in regulation. However, Rochester didn’t throw in the towel. The visitors scored 13 points in a 1:37 span to force overtime.

And in the extra session, the Ravens defense was the difference – holding the Falcons scoreless in the overtime.

“This was a huge victory for us tonight,” said Royal Oak senior center David Hatchett. “It was really important for us to come out this week and get this ‘W.’ We were really trying to make this statement that we are one of the teams to beat in this league.”

Hatchett led the Ravens with 14 points, seven of which came in the fourth quarter. Senior center Dave Wagner also finished with 12 points and junior guard DeAndre Smith had 10.

“When we’ve been successful, it hasn’t been with someone going out and scoring 25 points,” Royal Oak head coach Gary Sharpe said. “When we’ve been successful, it’s been when we get three or four guys in double digits in points. That’s what we had tonight.”

For Rochester, Perry led the way with 20 points, 14 of which came in the first quarter. He capped off the opening frame with a vicious fast-break dunk that opened up a 17-12 lead for Rochester at the end of the first quarter.

However, he was issued a technical foul for hanging on the rim, and because it was his second foul, he sat for the entire second quarter and the majority of the third.

Meanwhile, Royal Oak found itself in a 22-14 deficit early in the second quarter. But a big 9-0 run gave the Ravens its first lead of the game. Rochester went into the halftime break with a 31-27 lead.

Royal Oak (3-5, 2-2) made up the ground in the third quarter and the two teams entered the final frame with the score deadlocked at 38-38.

The Ravens stayed hot early in the fourth quarter, going on a 15-4 run to take a commanding 11-point lead in a stretch that saw Rochester coach Pleasant receive a technical foul for arguing a call.

But the Falcons went on a 10-2 run of its own in less than two minutes to get back in the game and force overtime with the score at 57-57.

“I give our kids a lot of credit,” Pleasant said. “We fought back. We were down 11 with not much time left, and they fought back.”

The overtime session was all Ravens. Royal Oak senior guard Terrell Nickerson was given the difficult task of guarding Perry in the overtime. He, and his teammates, were successful in keeping Perry and the Falcons off the board.

“He is a tough player to guard,” said Nickerson, who had three defensive rebounds in overtime. “We had to make a couple adjustments on him. But in the end, we were able to get him down.”

Neither team is a stranger to close games. Royal Oak lost its last game in overtime by one point to Bloomfield Hills Lahser, while Rochester defeated Oxford by a point in its last contest.

Rochester (4-4, 3-1) will try to get back on the right track on Friday when it hosts Groves.

“We’ve got to come back tomorrow hard in practice and work on defense a lot more,” Perry said. “The offense will come to us from the defensive end.”