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BOYS BASKETBALL: Consortium ends regular season, with a 70-61 win over East English Village Prep
DETROIT – In front of another packed crowd in the Al Anderson Gymnasium, Consortium improved to 17-2 on the season, in a 70-61 win over East English Village Prep.
The Cougars got off to a bit of a slow start, trailing at the end of the first and second quarters. But would eventually pick things up in the second half.
"We got off to a really bad start and I don’t know if we’ve ever had a worse first quarter," coach Tobias Tuomi said. "We were really sloppy, trying to do a little too much. We went into the half with 11 turnovers, but we corrected some things in the second half."
East English Village Prep (8-10) played well from the tip, jumping out to a 7-1 lead with 6:15 left in the first, on a lay-up by Karmari Newman. He finished with a solid 16 points.
The Cougars would soon close the gap on the Bulldogs in the second quarter and the Josh Jackson took over. Jackson is the nation’s No.1 rated sophomore and he showed why.
Jackson opened up the second half on a 6-0 run by himself, giving Consortium the lead for good. First he stole the ball and finished strong on the other end with the basket and the foul and a short time later, launched a 3-pointer that gave them the 33-28 lead with 7:24 left in the third.
"You could just see that he has that look in his eyes that he wasn’t going to lose," Tuomi said. "He plays like that all the time and especially tonight you could just see that he wanted to put us on his back."
Jackson filled the stat sheet, finishing with 28 points , 11 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 blocks. Displaying his array of skills, pleasing everyone in the gym who came to see him play.
"He did it on both ends," said Tuomi. "You can talk about the points, but he had a tough assignment checking Mar’Qywell (Jackson) all first and second quarter. He’s their best player and Josh did a good job on him."
Jackson had himself a productive night of his own for East English Village Prep, scoring 23 points and pulling down 11 boards in defeat. Consortium went up 54-41 late in the third, but Jackson refused to let his team go away that easily.
He scored 8 points in the fourth and a 3-pointer by Nate Boleware got the lead back down to 10, at 60-50 with 6:48 left in the game. But Consortium countered with an 8-5 run, capped off by a shot high off the glass from Jackson to seal the Bulldogs fate.
Senior Ronald Booth had great games on senior night in front of his parents and junior Mykel Tyson gave a great effort as well, scoring 16 and 10 points respectively.
"Lito (Booth) did a good job his last time here on senior night," said Tuomi. "He put together a couple of really good games and practices together and he’s really turned into the guy we wanted him to be."
"Mykel did a good job. He gave us something defensively and rebounded well and obviously had a couple of nice put back dunks."
The state playoffs are up next for both Consortium and East English Village Prep, as they look to make a run for Class C and Class A state titles respectively.
