Divine Child Crushes Flat Rock in Hoops Regional Semifinals

The girls basketball team shut out Flat Rock for 10 straight minutes–including the entire second quarter–en route to an easy 49-25 win in the Class B regional tournament March 8 at Divine Child.

The win qualified the Falcons for the state tournament’s Sweet 16 round and set up the regional championship game against Detroit University Prep Academy at 7:30 p.m. March 10, also at Divine Child. Prep Academy ousted Detroit Old Redford Academy in Tuesday night’s other regional game.

“We definitely came out with a whole different mind-set today,” said Falcons coach Mary Laney, comparing her team’s fast start to the slower start versus Melvindale in the district championship game the week before.

“When you’re in this part of the season, you can’t come out flat. You have to play hard all 32 minutes. That’s what we’ve been stressing all season long.”

Laney said this is the first time Divine Child has hosted a regional tournament and her players were really “fired up” about the home-court advantage.

The (19-5) scored the first eight points of the game and kept the Rams off the scoreboard until the four-minute mark.

All five DC starters scored during the first quarter for a 14-7 lead.

Flat Rock’s Jasmyn Hamilton hit a bucket at the buzzer. The Rams wouldn’t score again for the next 10 minutes.

The Falcons limited Flat Rock girls to only four shots in the second quarter–all misses–and forced 11 turnovers. Meanwhile, Divine Child scored 14 points, including nine by sophomore guard Morgan Blair.

The Falcons boosted their lead to 25–32-7–before Flat Rock’s Angela Pavilanis broke the stranglehold with a pair of free throws about two minutes into the third quarter.

To her credit, Pavilanis would score all 11 of the Rams’ points in that period–one more point than the entire Divine Child team.

As Laney substituted freely, the Falcons reached their biggest lead of the game, 45-18, just past the three-minute mark of the fourth quarter.

Pavilanis led all scorers with 15 points. Flat Rock ended the season 14-10, including its first district championship since the mid-1980s.

As for DC, 10 different Falcons scored in the game, led by Blair’s 14 and eight more by senior Hayley Stempien.

Rosanna Reynolds scored five points for Divine Child. Brittney Malinowski, Cara Miller, Mallory Myler and Shanna Morrison added four points apiece. And Nicole Urbanick, Rachel Kerry and Malaysha Cammon each chipped in a bucket.

Blair said the Falcons had fun–and they always play better when they have fun.

She said the team is focused on a single goal: playing for the state title on March 19 at the Breslin Center on the campus of Michigan State University.

“We have a big goal to make it to Breslin,” Blair said. “We want to have fun in these games to reach our goal.

“We have a lot of talent and we really want to get to the finals," she added. "Anything is possible. It depends on our intensity and drive.”

The Falcons are four wins away from their goal.

The winner of Thursday night’s Divine Child-Detroit University Prep game advances to the Class B quarterfinals on March 15 at Marshall.

The March 18 semifinals and March 19 finals are at Breslin.

Tickets are $5 to the March 10 game between Divine Child and Detroit University Prep Academy.