PORT HURON’S RIVALRY RENEWED!

Posted by bigD | February 10, 2008 .

Was I ever wrong with my Superbowl prediction. HA HA HA. Wow! How about those Giants? Who would have ever thought they’d have a pass rush that could disrupt Brady like that? I was baffled watching it. I still don’t see what all the fuss is about Eli Manning though. Terry Bradshaw claimed after the game on FOX that that final drive is what legendary QB’s are made of. Oh really, Terry? Throwing up 3 wounded ducks off your back foot on that final drive that should have been picked off is what legends are made of? Whatever! I could go on all day long about the Giants luck but I am more then happy for Amani Toomer (FROM…MICHIGAN) regardless. That’s not why I am writing today though. As play by play announcer for Port Huron’s varsity sports, I want to talk about what a beauty game I saw last night (Friday, Feb. 8th). To renew a longtime rivalry (especially this year with both teams in the same MAC WHITE division) is always exciting but to see……them play a good rivalry game always makes it that much better. Well folks, the Port Huron High School Big Reds and the Port Huron Northern Huskies certainly didn’t disappoint last night at PH. There was great back and forth action, there were some great fluke shots that fell, it was loud, the public address announcer was even trying to be louder and even at times zone out the Big D (is that possible?), the house was rockin, I couldn’t hear myself in the headphones and the band was louder then loud. What’s that the recipe for? A tell- tale, top-notch rivalry game between Port Huron’s finest players from their two high schools! Truly folks, I’ve never been happier to be in the booth then I was for last night’s affair. Here’s BIG D’s re-cap of the Big Reds/Huskies 2008, Round 2 …

Port Huron Northern’s Head Coach, Brian Jamieson must be a very happy camper today. His Huskies had a huge lead on the Big Reds in this game and quite frankly from what I watched, the Big Reds had no business even being in the game in the first place but in the end they were, and that’s what made it such a great battle. Could the Big Reds battle back and actually win when not playing anywhere near their best? Well to answer the question… NO! But that doesn’t mean they didn’t make it entertaining. Northern ended up with a 63-60 win although they’ll tell you it certainly wasn’t easy despite it looking that way at times. In front of a capacity crowd at Port Huron High School, the game came down to one last Sam Seppo 3-point shot and it didn’t fall for the Big Reds. Finally, after losing the first game between these two teams (58-50) on January 9th, the Huskies had bragging rights to take back up north with them. The game itself was the final regular season rivalry basketball game between the two Port Huron teams for 2008 and obviously, for all the seniors on both teams. There is still a possibility (very unlikely) that these 2 teams could meet again in the Class A district playoff finals Feb. 29th to be held at Lance Cruise North High School but that’s something that will be decided on another day. For now, the Huskies are a very happy group and deservedly so.

Coming into the game there were some obvious keys for both teams to winning the battle. The most important player on the court as always was Husky 6 foot 9 Center, Jay Thames who clearly had one of his best games as a Husky. To have such a size advantage over everyone else is something that Northern as a team absolutely had to capitalize on and they most certainly did. What a way to go out, Jay! The big man poured in 28 points and had 12 rebounds. Trust me, he probably should have had more rebounds then that even. Early in the game, the Big Reds were clearly allowing Thames to do what he wanted. Interior passes to him were coming easy and he was definitely getting too many easy looks at easy baskets directly under the net. So what did the Big Reds do to attempt to stop him? They started fouling. That’s not the answer when Thames shoots as well from the free throw line as he does but hey, that’s better then the easy baskets he was getting in the early going. What really amazes me about Thames though is his outside shooting. To be 6 foot 9 and be able to hit three’s is just outstanding and makes him almost impossible to defend from the perimeter due to his supreme height. Jay Thames is a strong athlete, basketball player and all around center for a very underrated Husky team that may surprise in the upcoming playoffs.

In winning last night’s rivalry game, Northern improved their MAC WHITE divisional record to 6-5 but 11-6 overall while Port Huron saw their record fall to 4-5 in the MAC WHITE and 7-9 overall. The game probably meant more overall for Port Huron but certainly meant more to the Huskies morally in hopes that they could split the season series instead of falling to 0-2 vs. the Big Reds. Northern began the game blowing out Port Huron due to their offensive explosion early, missed defensive assignments by PH (especially on Thames) and overall sloppy play that almost did the Big Reds in. I personally didn’t think there was much flow to the Big Reds offensively all night long other then the solid shooting of Sam Seppo. Port Huron was clearly inconsistent, sloppy and Northern won the turnover battle relatively easily. Believe me folks, we don’t need to check turnover stats to figure that one out.

The Huskies led 17-13 after 1 quarter and the game was at 32-16 midway through the 2nd. It’s hard to out “chop, chop” the Big Reds though, despite the fact that with such a big lead Northern was sitting back going… “Unless the Big Reds and mainly Sam Seppo play out of their skull for the rest of this game, they’re dead meat.” But the Big Reds proved that you should never say never and when you’re down, you can only look up. Port Huron began to take control of the basketball game when trailing by so much? The Big Reds closed the half with a 14-5 run, finished the 3rd quarter with a 13-3 surge and took the lead for the first time in the 3rd quarter, 54-53 to everyone’s surprise, including myself, the Big D. I couldn’t believe what a comeback and basketball game I was witnessing and I was loving every second!

The final tell tale stat of the game was how well the Huskies shut down the Big Reds offense for the rest of the basketball game (Big Reds failed to score a single point in the final 5:28 of the game) and especially, the defense of Huskies, Spencer Thomas on Big Red hot shooter, Sam Seppo. Port Huron had a chance in the dying seconds to tie the game and when Seppo brought the ball down the court without a single pass, everyone knew what was going to happen next. Seppo pulled up and took the final shot. The ball looked good but just hit the back of the rim and the rest is history.

Other players to mention in the game are sophomore guard, Travis Reed (9 points) and Lance Cusac (8 points) for the Huskies. They may have had their games overshadowed by the 28 from Thames but their contributions were equally important. Particularly Travis Reed who ended up starting and playing most of the game due to the fact that both regular players, John Nevado (might be out for the rest of the year) and Don Caluya had ankle injuries. Reed at one point hit one of the craziest baskets I’ve seen in awhile. Falling down, he basically threw up a prayer, wished it in and IT WENT! If that wasn’t an indication that it was the Huskies night then I don’t know what would have been.

As mentioned, the Big Reds were never really in the game for much of the contest. They had their streaks but should never have been in that predicament anyway. They came out flat and PHN just plain took it to them. I really think you have to credit PH for hanging in there and making it a game though when absolutely nothing was going their way. Perhaps the greatest hustler on the court, Jordan Brown was in foul trouble and was taken out of the game too early due to receiving a technical foul. His defense and overall hard nosed aggressive play is something the Big Reds certainly could have used down the stretch but it just wasn’t meant to be. Seppo finished with 24 points, including four 3-pointers. At one stretch of the 1st quarter he had 9 straight points and 16 at halftime. Chris Cotton also had 7 points for the Big Reds.

It was a night meant for the Huskies but to me, it was amazing that the Big Reds were even in the game in the first place. I don’t know if many teams would have been in the game at the end like Port Huron was which is a definite testament to Coach Moger and his team for not getting down on themselves when trailing by so much so early. What would have happened in this game had the Big Reds been in the game from start to finish instead of putting runs together to battle back from a major blowout? I guess we’ll never know but for the Huskies it was ultimately satisfying. From the entire cast of CPHS, Channel 6 to all the players on both teams from Friday Night…Best of luck the rest of the way guys. It was a great game and you all made the city of Port Huron proud…win or lose. Congratulations, Port Huron Northern Huskies! LET’S GET NASTY!!!

Note: All photos in this article were initially taken by the Port Huron Times Herald. In order from top to bottom as they appear in the article - Jay Thames/Mike Page, Mike Page/Tyler Peters, Spencer Thomas, Chris Cotton, Jon Nevado and Big Red Head Coach - George Moger.

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PORT HURON’S RIVALRY RENEWED!

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