This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Sports

Lahser Boys Advance Over Brother Rice in Opening Round of Basketball Districts

The Knights open the playoffs with convincing 56-44 win on Monday night at Seaholm High School.

BIRMINGHAM – Fresh off winning the Oakland Activities Association Gold division title, the Lahser boys basketball team is looking to make some noise in the Class A playoffs.

It’s off to a pretty good start.

The Knights beat 56-44 in the opening round of districts on Monday night at .

Find out what's happening in Birminghamwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“We’re trying to put Lahser on the map (for basketball),” sophomore Yante Maten said.

It was Maten’s dunk in the third quarter that Knights coach Duane Graves called the play of the game. Brother Rice was in the midst of a 6-0 run that cut Lahser’s lead in half to 28-21 when Maten threw down a monstrous dunk.

Find out what's happening in Birminghamwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“It was an exclamation point,” Graves said. “That was a momentum change, when a kid dunks in a high school game like that, that changes the whole atmosphere in the game.”

Khalil Gracey kicked it to Maten in the lane where the sophomore took two quick steps and slammed it home. 

“It was good passing,” Maten said, smiling. “Khalil threw me a really great pass and my guy went to go guard him. I saw an open lane and went for it.”

Maten, a nominee for , finished the game with 14 points and 13 rebounds. Gracey had a game-high 16 points.

For most of the game, the Knights offense was running like a Swiss clock. Gracey and teammate Kyle Riley were swinging the ball around and getting everyone involved.

“It was our ball movement,” Graves said. “We made passes today that we haven’t made all year long. We made the extra pass tonight and that surprised people then we came up with big shots in big situations.”

Gracey hit a couple of big shots to help Lahser burst out to an 11-point lead in the second quarter. The Warriors started to get sloppy with the ball and the sophomore guard hit back-to-back 3-pointers.

After the second one, he flashed three fingers to get the large Knights’ student fan section on their feet. The basket put Lahser up 20-9 with 5:03 left in the half.

The Knights maintained the double-digit lead until the final play of the half. Warriors guard Jason Alessi hit a 3-pointer with eight seconds left on the clock to make the score 24-17 going into halftime.

In the fourth quarter, Brother Rice went to a full court press to try and get back in the game.

Warriors senior Joey Warner hit a 3-pointer to cut the Knights lead to five points at 46-41 with 1:24 to go in the game, but Lahser was never in any real trouble.

Brother Rice didn’t score again until the final 15 seconds. Knights guards Martez Jones and Khalil Gracy extended their teams lead back over 10 points with free throws.

“They had a really good press, it was hard to break,” Gracey said. “We had to work together as a team to break it, not dribble up the floor, but pass to break the press.”

Warner finished with a team-high 13 points for the Warriors. He fouled out with 21.7 seconds to go in the game. Junior Andrew Toth added 11 points.

Coming in Lahser wanted to focus on limiting Brother Rice’s shooters like Toth and guard Jason Alessi. The pair combined for five 3-pointers, but were never able to get into any kind of rhythm.

The Knights advance to the district semifinals where it faces another city-rival. Lahser will play on Wednesday at 5 p.m.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Birmingham