Howell’s boys basketball team, which scored the last 11 points of the game to beat Salem 53-50 on Saturday, has another tall task in order tonight, when the Highlanders travel to Canton.
The Chiefs (6-4 overall, 6-0 KLAA West) will play host to a Highlanders team that is a game behind them in the standings.
The game will be broadcast on The Livingston Post beginning at around 6:50 p.m. Click here for the link.
Saturday’s win over Salem came in a contest the Highlanders (6-3, 5-1) trailed for most of the game. Howell turned up its defense in the final minutes, with Adam Jones making a couple of key steals that sparked the winning rally.
Click here for the archived broadcast!
But coach Nick Simon says his team’s maturity played a key role in that win.
“I think we’ve grown in our ability to handle adversity,” he said Saturday. “I don’t know if we would have won this game last year, but they’ve grown and matured so much in being able to handle tough situations, and it showed.”
Howell has nine seniors, and Simon says their experience in basketball and other sports has proven valuable as well.
A win would lift the Highlanders into a tie for first place at the halfway mark of their regular season and KLAA West campaign.
“All you can really hope for is that you can play the final game in the first time through the division and have the chance to be in first place,” Simon said. “They have good coaching, and the guy who really makes them go is Cole Vickers. He’s going to Ferris State. He could do things in a very different way than the majority of the elite players we play against. Lake McIntosh is really impressive as well. He dictates how their team does. When he plays really well, they’re really hard to beat.”
Vickers is a 6-4 senior guard who is averaging 19.6 points and 5.1 rebounds per game . McIntosh, a 5-11 senior, is averaging 11.2 points, 3.6 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game.
“Vickers is probably the best player in our division, and Lake is arguably the quickest,” Simon said. “I think they present a lot of issues but I think our guys are going to be up to that challenge.”
Simon believes his team is ready no matter what happens,
“I think it’s going to be a big moment for us, and no matter what happens, we’re going to learn a lot, for sure,” he said. “They played as good a non-conference schedule as you could possibly play. So we’re excited to be able to kind of measure ourselves a little bit against that, too.”
