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Dearborn Edsel Ford played host to Lincoln Park on Thursday night in what was its home opener.
Lincoln Park in Dearborn Edsel Ford girls basketball photo gallery
After a sluggish start, the Thunderbirds used their defense, and transition buckets, to overcome an early deficit and went on to defeat the visiting Railsplitters 37-21.
“We started off not playing well but relied on our defensive efforts to get us where we needed to be,” Edsel coach Jihad Baydoun said. “We were kind of scared, nerves from the first game at home, so after a timeout, we talked that out of them and they picked it up after a slow start.”
With the win, the T-Birds improve to 2-2 overall this season and 2-0 in the Downriver League.
Lincoln Park falls to 1-3 overall and 0-1 in the DRL. Despite the losing record, Rails coach Garai Fields likes where his team is right now.
“We’re better this year than we were last year at this point in the season,” Fields said. “Our freshman guard Kyra Gaines has been huge for us, she’s been giving us looks that we haven’t had before, so it’s a work in progress and we’re working hard to build on.”
Lamaya Leonard had the hot hand early and pushed Lincoln Park to an 8-0 lead in the first quarter.
Trailing 10-4 at the end of the first frame, Edsel turned up the heat on the opposition. Courtesy of a diamond press, and a 2-3 zone, the T-Birds were able to force some turnovers.
Edsel guard Nazmiah Salam did everything to take advantage of the turnovers, turning them into points on the offensive end. As a result, the T-Birds outscored their opponents 8-2 in the second quarter and the teams were tied 12-12 at halftime.
“I told them, the next two quarters are really important,” Baydoun said. Our press was really good, and it turned into easy points, which made it easy for us in the second half.
After the halftime intermission, Edsel went on a big-time run.
Freshman guard Maya Harman was stellar in transition for the T-Birds, taking advantage of her team’s outstanding defensive effort, and getting some easy buckets. Edsel outscored Lincoln Park 17-0 in the third quarter and took a 29-12 lead into the final eight minutes.
Outstanding defense and rebounding continued for the home team, and it stymied any hopes of a comeback for the Rails.
“We came out hot, but then it got really flat,” Fields said. “It’s a situation where we’ve never been there, and we have to learn from it. We couldn’t relax and let go on defense after jumping out to an early lead like that. We’ll learn from it, keep improving and keep rebuilding.”
As for Edsel, Baydoun was happy with the team’s performance, but acknowledged that the squad has a lot of work to do to achieve its goals this winter.
“We played hard, but we still need to clean things up like making layups and not turning the ball over,” he said. “We’re very young with a lot of freshmen and sophomores, we haven’t played a lot of basketball, so we have to keep working on training and building on the fundamentals.”
The T-Birds return to action on Tuesday, December 13 in a road game against reigning DRL champion Gibraltar Carlson. Two nights later, Edsel is scheduled to resume league play with a trip to Wyandotte Roosevelt.
Lincoln Park is scheduled to play a non-league game Friday at Garden City. The Rails will return to DRL play with a home game against Allen Park on Tuesday, December 13 and two nights later they will visit Woodhaven.
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Edsel and Lincoln Park also saw action two nights earlier.
The T-Birds dominated host Southgate Anderson 44-22 in their league opener. The Rails hosted Flat Rock and lost 49-18.
For Edsel, Harman had 16 points and six steals against Anderson while Nawa Elgahmi finished with 15 points and five steals and Keagan Gerlach finished the night with seven points, eight rebounds and five steals. For the Titans, Ava Zacker led the way with 13 points.
In the loss for Lincoln Park, Izzy Bartal had eight points and Treasure Ross finished with seven.
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