Detroit – It was a kind of “graduation day” for Marc West and the Madison Heights Bishop Foley team Sunday celebrating the school’s first-ever CHSL boys basketball championship.
“I give credit to the seniors,” West said. “They were with me when I came here four years ago. We talked about where we wanted the program to go, right to the top.”
However, it was a pair of next year’s seniors who might have West thinking about the future when he said, “It (a winning program) starts from here.”
Junior guards Mike Oravetz and Max Aleshire combined for 18 of 23 points the Ventures scored in a torrid seven minutes and 16 seconds, turning a 33-19 deficit into a 42-40 lead, which they never gave up on the way to a 68-52 triumph over Detroit Loyola at the University of Detroit’s Calihan Hall.
Oravetz sank four consecutive free throws and a triple for seven of the nine unanswered points Bishop Foley ran off in the closing three minutes of the second quarter, shaving a 14-point deficit to five points.
Aleshire bombed a triple from the top of the key to open the third quarter, another triple at 5:46 to give the Ventures a 37-35 edge, and a third triple at 3:44 for the lead they would not relinquish. Down the stretch, he made the team’s last four points on free throws to end with 13.
“When he hit those 3's,” said Bulldogs coach, John Buscemi, “it looked like my kids’ heads went down.”
Buscemi gave credit for a “nice adjustment” West made starting the second half, putting Oravetz on Loyola’s junior guard Montel Cooks, who was unstoppable with four baskets and three triples. Cooks was limited to just five points in the second half for his team-high 22.
“He made it personal,” said West about Oravetz, who didn’t let up on offense with 10 second half points for a game-high total of 24.
Junior center, Justin King, muscled in 10 points under the basket in the first half (he and Cooks accounted for 27 of Loyola’s 33 first-half points), but pressured by Foley’s 6-foot-4 Corey Green and 6-foot-3 Jordan Walker, scored four points in the third quarter and was not a factor in rebounding.
Walker, one of the departing seniors, controlled the backboards in the fourth quarter. He scored five of his 14 points in an 18-2 run Bishop Foley fashioned to take its largest lead, 60-42, with four minutes left in the game. Foley’s victory was sweet for another reason: they avenged two losses to Loyola by a total of seven points during the regular season.
Foley’s other seniors are Brandon May-Dismuke, Andrew Shango and Dominic Gasso.
Loyola’s only senior, guard Matthew Gold, had 13 points, including 7-of-8 free throws.
“Our leadership is developing over time,” Buscemi said. He will have nine returning juniors next year to work with.
LOYOLA (14-5) – Matthew Gold 3 7/8 13; Montel Cooks 6 (3) 1/1 22; Julian Turner 1 0/0 2; Richard Gold 0 1 /2 2; Marcus Mims 0 (1) 0/0 3; Malik McDowell 0 0/2 0; Justin King 7 0/0 14. Total: 17 (4) 9/13 55.
BISHOP FOLEY (13-5) – Andrew Shango 1 2/2 4; Mike Oravetz 4 (2) 10/12 24; Corey Green 3 3/5 9; Max Aleshire 0 (3) 4/4 13; DeAndre Jackson 0 (1) 1 /2 4; Jordan Walker 6 2/3 14. Total: 14 (6) 22/28 68.
