Roll up the streets. Closed down the shops.
These are the moments that made the town of Milford great.
Top-ranked Orchard Lake St. Mary’s (22-1) is coming to town Tuesday to battle the Mustangs (17-7) in a Division I semifinal at Milford.
Milford has two chances at victory – slim and none. St. Mary’s is too experience, too powerful and is terrorizing the high school basketball world.
“We are not always the most talented team, but we get out there and hustle and we play defense and we scrap,” said Milford center Anthony Hutter. “You can never count us out. “
This is the second straight season in the regional semifinals for Milford, losers to Rochester Adams, 59-41 last season.
St. Mary’s is the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press top-ranked team in the state. Its last lose came 19 games ago when the Eaglets lost at U-D Jesuit, who remains in the tournament. The back court of point guard Kareem Rozier and Jack Crighton.
Forward DeCorum is a dangerous scorer as is freshman Trey McKinney who has Big Ten offers.
“As a team though, our No. 1 goal is defense,” 6-foot-6 junior forward Jayden Savoury told The Detroit News. We really didn’t expect to get as far as we did last year, but now this year we have that goal of a state championship on our mind and that motivates us a lot.”
St. Mary’s is on a roll. It crushed Detroit Cass Tech, ranked number two in the state, during the Operation Friendship game, 73-41. In the first round of districts St. Mary’s beat White Lake Lakeland 67-22, an opponent Milford is very familiar with,
Milford swept Lakeland 47-29 and 59-51 this season.
This game is David vs. Goliath. It’s almost a Miracle on Ice matchup where Team USA stunned the heavily Russians during the 1980 Olympics.
However, St. Mary’s has not seen a crowd like the one likely to show up in Milford. The town folks come out for their teams when they are on a road.
For Milford coach Dave Gilbert this is personal. He was one of those fifth and sixth graders from Milford who dreamed of being on the basketball team. He not only played for the Mavericks, but he is now the coach.
“I’m a Milford guy,” Gilbert said. “I wanted to be one of those guys (players).”
Mission accomplished. Now can he pull off an upset that would become the biggest story in Michigan high school basketball this season?