West Bloomfield suffers first home loss of season

West Bloomfield is one of the most improved teams in the lakes area, but Auburn Hills Avondale dealt the Lakers a lesson in coming up strong in big games.

The Lakers suffered their first home loss of the season in a 70-48 defeat against the first-place Yellow Jackets on Friday, Jan. 28.

West Bloomfield (11-3 overall, 6-2 in the Oakland Activities Association White Division) came into the game in second-place in the OAA White Division behind the Jackets (11-1, 8-0), but simply didn’t have the firepower to match Avondale’s offense.

The Jackets led 19-8 after the first quarter and 39-18 at halftime.

Avondale barely outscored the Lakers 31-30 in the second half, but was clearly the better team last Friday.

“This was the best shooting team we have gone against as they hit on six threes in the first half and a total of eight made in the game,” said West Bloomfield Head Coach Steve Larkin. “Anytime you give up 70 points in a game, you will be on the losing end in our conference. We have had solid defensive efforts this season; however, when we needed to make stops, we couldn’t stop their ball movement and shooting effort.”

Jailynn Hamilton led the Lakers with 13 points, while Sydni Davis had 12.

Avondale had five scorers in double figures, as Quennece Garrison scored 14 points, followed by Courtney Williams with 13, Hannah Little with 12, and Andrea Strauss and Loreal Farris with 10 points each.

“Give credit to Avondale, who is a step ahead of us in a lot of different areas,” Larkin said.

West Bloomfield began the week on a high note with a win over Oxford, 56-33, at home on Tuesday, Jan. 25.

“This was a nice home win in which we were able to get contributions from all of our players,” Larkin said. “This was a balanced attack contribution-wise, as all of our players logged valuable minutes.”

Sydni Davis led the Lakers with 17 points and senior Kylia Perryman chipped in with 8.

West Bloomfield has only one game this week as it will host Birmingham Groves on Thursday, Feb. 3. The Lakers will then be off until Wednesday, Feb. 9, when they travel to Southfield.

“Right now our focus is finishing our last six division games with a heavy focus on defense and playing team ball,” Larkin said.