By Don Horkey | Special to The Michigan Catholic

Warren -- It won't be difficult to spot the sleepyheads Wednesday morning in the classrooms at Novi Detroit Catholic Central and Warren DeLaSalle: just look at the junior varsity and varsity boys basketball players.

The night was particularly hard on CC. They endured a torturous three-hour bus ride from Novi to Warren along the parking lot named I-696 in Tuesday night’s snow storm.

The JV game didn’t tip off until 7 p.m., an hour later than scheduled, while the varsity game didn’t begin until nearly 90 minutes after its original start of 7:30 p.m.

The DLS men were probably in bed by midnight -- when CC’s players were just arriving back at their campus, and still needing to fighting the elements to get home.

While the weather was the story on the outside, inside the gym it was all DLS from the start enroute to a 57-34 victory. The Pilots scored 12 points before CC’s Kyle Cooper drilled a three-pointer with 1:34 left in the first quarter to put his team on the scoreboard. CC had missed on 10 straight attempts before Cooper’s bull’s-eye.

Vaughn Avecilla (8 points including a pair of three-pointers) and Brian Mitzner (7 points) accounted for DLS’s 15-7 first quarter lead.

CC  pulled to within seven points of the Pilots in the opening 31 seconds of the second quarter, but that was the closest they were going to get the rest of the night.

DeLaSalle is 7-0 and ranked No. 3 in Class A (2-0 in the Catholic League Central Division). CC dropped to 6-2 overall, 1-1 league.

Mitzner finished with 14 points (three 3-pointers), Sterling Johnson 13, Avecilla 12 and Brad Law 10.  Cooper paced CC with 12 points, including a pair of long-range bombs.

Shamrocks coach Bill Dyer refused to use the weather for the loss.

“We were out of sync,” he said. “We are a better shooting team (3 for 13 beyond the arc, 12 for 40 overall). But CC is very good, inside and out. We needed to give a better effort.”

CC committed 18 turnovers on the night.

“We used five different defenses,” said Pilots coach Greg Esler. “We did what we needed to do,” adding about CC: “They’re much better than they showed tonight.”

DLS hit seven of 14 long-range baskets, 13 of 28 from the field and 14 of 18 free throws.

And now, only three are perfect

Just three teams remains unbeaten in varsity basketball at the start of the new year: Dearborn Divine Child (7-0) and Mt. Clemens Cardinal Mooney (8-0) among the girls varsity squads. DeLaSalle (8-0) is the only unbeaten boys team.

Monday night, in a clash of two unbeaten teams, Cardinal Mooney bested Riverview Gabriel Richard, 57-53. The loss was Richard’s first after nine straight victories. Allen Park Cabrini surprised Waterford Our Lady of the Lakes, 47-33, to give the Lakers their first loss after six wins in a row.

In boys basketball, Dearborn Divine Child had its 7-0 record spoiled by Detroit Loyola, 60-56.