Pioneers Opens Conference Play With a Road Victory

Travon Cotton (Heritage/ Saginaw, MI) has been hindered all season due to injuries but the 6'5 sophomore showed his strength in the opening game of conference win over St. Clair County Community College by a score of 87-85.  Cotton who is 100% now played huge finishing the night with 28 points and 10 rebounds shooting 75% from the floor.  Coach McMath stated that he has challenged Cotton all week with heated exchanges to bring that dominating player out of him.  Cotton Leadership was called upon early and often by Coach McMath and he responded not by his on the court performance but off the court as well. 

Opening conference play on the road the Pioneers knew that it will take great execution to be successful in the game against a well coached St. Clair team.  They started out going back and forth early with two early three pointers by Jaylen Randle (Carman-Ainsworth/Flint,MI) that gave the Pioneers a 9-3 lead.  This sea saw of a game would be consistent up and down until a Cotton 2 pointer plus the foul gave the Pioneers their biggest lead in the half of 11.  The Skippers of St. Clair would not back down, and fought back to cut the lead to 2 with 2 minutes to go in the half.  A couple late Markell Bradshaw (Saginaw/ Saginaw, MI) buckets pushed the lead to 48-42 at half. 

The Second half was a great up and down physical track meet that saw St. Clair take the lead by as much as 5 points with 8 minutes left in the game.  The Pioneers responded with some empathic defensive plays which lead to another 3 point play as Cotton was fouled on a rebound put back to tie the game at 62 each. The Pioneers gained their largest lead of the half with an Thunderous Dunk by Cotton from a great pass from Justin Person (Carman-Ainsworth/Flint,MI). 

St. Clair charged back and tied the game up at 85 each with 38 seconds remaining in regulation.  After the Pioneers ran the game clock down to 8 seconds remaining and 4 seconds remained on the shot clock.  Pioneers inbounded the ball to Bradshaw when he sized up his defender and with an hesitation step back knocked down a contested jump shot over a 6'4 defender to give the Pioneers the final lead and victory in dramatic fashion.

"The fight and determination of our players came out tonight but it was not our play in the game but how we prepared during the week which allowed us to earn this victory over a tough conference opponent.  This week of practice was intense and humbling for a lot of guys but they all responded positively .  I am most proud of our ability to have five guys in double figures."  - Coach Kyle Blackbourn. 

Pioneers look to play their first home conference game vs. Macomb Community College on Wednesday January 7^th at 7:30pm.