Pioneer Hot Shooting From Deep Leads to a Road Victory

Macomb, MI----Julian Henderson (Saginaw/Saginaw,MI) scored his career high of 26 Points in a 93-80 win over Macomb Community College. 

The Pioneers offense was clicking on all cylinders to begin the game.  The offensive execution of the Pioneers led to some early opportunities to score in the paint which allowed them to set up their half court defense.  As fast as the Pioneers scored Macomb was pushing the ball back down their throats trying to get easy transition baskets.  The Monarchs did a great job of transition offense which kept the game close in the first 10 minutes of the game until the Pioneers offense went to another level. Henderson , Benjamin Batts 17 points (Arthur Hill/Saginaw,MI), and Davion Phillips 12 points (Kalamazoo Loy Norrix/Kalamazoo,MI) went on a furious run which included them hitting 11 of 13 three pointers to take a 51-37 point lead heading into the half. 

The second half opened with a Monarch's 10-0 run which led Coach Blackbourn to call a timeout to settle down his team.  "We knew they were going to come out swinging as hard as they could to get back into the game, we just needed to weather the storm."  After the initial storm the game became a back and forth track meet which the Pioneers lead hovered around 5 points for majority of the game.  With four minutes left in the game, the Pioneers brought their own storm with a barrage of three pointers and a furious dunk by Henderson to push the lead to 17 points.  As the flow of the game dedicated the Monarchs made one more hard push but the Pioneers sustain their composure to win 93-80. 

Also joining Henderson, Batts and Phillips in double figures was Travon Cotton with 12 points, and Dan Stenback added a nice spark off the bench with 10 points. The Pioneers nearly missed 6 players in double figures with Markell Bradshaw hitting for 9 points and adding 7 assists.

"We are growing as a team in the right spots of the game but we are far from a finished product.  There is a lot of hard work and attention to detail that we must sustain and take to the next level if we want to continue to grow into a conference contender." –Coach Carlos McMath. 

The Pioneers will travel to Alpena on Saturday February 7^th, to take on Lumberjacks.  The Men will play first at 5:30 followed by the women's game at 7:30.