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East English escapes Ford; Western falls to Collegiate Prep, 64-63
Detroit – Detroit Western and Detroit East English Village Prep, teams ranked in the top 10 in Class A, each had the lead late in Wednesday’s Detroit Public School League quarterfinal games at Detroit Cass Tech and just one survived.
Greg Elliott made four consecutive free throws in the final 1:22 to give East English, ranked No. 8, a 77-74 lead and the Bulldogs held off Detroit Henry Ford 81-76.
In Wednesday’s first quarterfinal Detroit Collegiate Prep at Northwestern shocked Western, the defending league champion, 64-63.
Collegiate Prep will play East English in Friday’s second semifinal at 7 p.m. The first game features Detroit Renaissance against Detroit King at 5 p.m.
The PSL championship game will be played Feb. 19 at Calihan Hall at 7:30 p.m.
Collegiate Prep (11-3) is coached by Matt Blount, a former assistant for Western coach Derrick McDowell when McDowell coached at Detroit Redford.
Collegiate Prep scored the game’s final 10 points and it was Terrance Sewell’s basket with two seconds left that completed the comeback.
Sewell had 28 points and Kylan Shipp added 18.
Armani Tinsley led Western (13-3), ranked No. 6 in Class A. Brailen Neely, Western’s top player who signed with Oakland, had seven points, all in the fourth quarter.
“With my relationship with Derrick…I’m not surprised we didn’t quit,” Blount said. “They have a lot of fight.”
This Blount’s second season at Collegiate Prep, his first two as the head coach of a boys varsity team. He was the head coach of the girls team at Redford.
There were 15 lead changes in the East English-Henry Ford game, 11 in the first half.
Last season Henry Ford held an 18-point lead over East English in a quarterfinal game before the Bulldogs came back to win.
“(Henry Ford coach Ken) Flowers does a good job,” East English coach Juan Rickman said. “He takes our strengths away. They ran with us but unlike most teams that play us they took good opportunities to score. (Flowers) makes good adjustments. We packed it in and they started shooting the threes.”
Henry Ford (10-7), ranked No. 4 in Class B, made 10 3-pointers. DeVontaye Webb had six.
The catalyst for the Trojans was James Towns, a point guard and four-year starter. Towns had 13 of his 22 points in the second quarter to keep his team close.
East English (14-2) ended the half on a 12-7 run to grab a 40-36 lead. Cedrick Lattimore, the Bulldogs’ center who signed with Iowa last Wednesday to play offensive tackle, had 10 of his 17 points in the quarter to give his team a lift.
Twice East English increased its lead to eight, the second time (50-42) on Lattimore’s 3-point play with 2:56 left in the third.
Henry Ford kept the pressure on full court and took a 68-67 lead on back-to-back 3-pointers by Webb and Deontae Ulmer with 3:09 left. For Ulmer those were his only points of the game.
The Trojans took a 71-68 lead on Webb’s final 3-pointer and last held the lead, 74-73, on Towns’ 3-point play with 1:39 remaining.
Down the stretch it was Elliott, Lattimore and Jaylin McFadden who made the winning plays. Elliott made two free throws with 1:22 left to give the Bulldogs the lead for good, 75-74. He rebounded a Henry Ford miss, was fouled and made two more free throws with 1:10 left.
A Lattimore basket gave East English a 79-76 lead and McFadden rebounded a Towns miss from 3-point range and was fouled. McFadden made two free throws with 4.2 seconds left to close it out.
Elliott had 19 points and seven rebounds, and McFadden added 13 points and 10 rebounds. Kamari Newman scored 16 points, 10 in the second half.
For Henry Ford Webb scored 21 points and Alston Hunter added 13.
“We practice these situations in practice,” Elliott said. “When we get into games it’s easy. It’s just like practice.
“We said we wanted somebody else to beat us (other than Towns). He’s a good player. I didn’t think he could shoot like that. He can.”
