03/06/2007

One and undone: Comets foil district jinx

Gibson, Whittaker lead Leland past rival Northport

By MARK URBAN

murban@record-eagle.com

LELAND — If any team understands the one and done nature of the postseason it's Leland.

Despite winning two of the last three Cherryland Conference basketball titles, the Comets were looking for their first district victory since 2004.

That's one.

Leland pulled away in the second half to top two-time defending district champion Northport 62-50 on Monday in the opening game of the Class D tournament hosted by the Comets.

Leland will advance to Friday's district final against the winner of tonight's game between Traverse City Christian and Lake Leelanau St. Mary's.

"Northport's won it the last two years and we never got a chance to play them,” Leland coach Jason Stowe said. "The last two years we've been out in the first round. To get a win tonight was pretty important, to kind of get that little monkey off our backs a little bit.

"To get our first district win since Buddy Kenney was pretty huge.”

Leland (17-4) got a big offensive output from Jordan Gibson and a couple of big rebounds to push past Northport (11-10) after halftime.

Gibson had 16 of his team-high 20 points to help the Comets break away after taking a 30-26 lead into the intermission.

And it's kind of ironic that the big player for Leland has a connection with Northport. His mother, Ellen Gibson, works at the rival school.

"Jordan came up with some big shots at some big times,” Stowe said. "But bigger than that he was 8 for 8 at the free-throw line. We struggled a little bit there.”

"Jordan Gibson was the difference in the game tonight,” Northport coach Chris Stannard added. "He hit a couple of big threes tonight.”

Gibson's first 3-pointer gave Leland a 39-32 lead midway through the third quarter. He tallied nine points in the period to send the Comets into the final eight minutes of play with a 47-39 advantage.

The second triple Gibson nailed came with 3:02 to play and put the game out of reach.

And if Gibson wasn't putting Northport away on the scoreboard, Leland was down low.

Matt Lichty had seven defensive rebounds in the second half while Marcus Whittaker pulled down six offensive rebounds.

"In the second half we came out a lot more aggressive on the boards and I thought that was just crucial,” Stowe said. "Rebounding in the second half was absolutely crucial.”

"I thought the difference in the game was they got behind our defense and got some easy buckets at crucial times,” Stannard said. "Secondly, we had a lot of open shots and we didn't hit. We hit some of those open shots and it might have been a different game.”

Nowhere was that any bigger than early in the final period. Northport had cut the lead to 49-43 on two free throws by Drew Mitchell. The Wildcats got the ball back, but failed to convert on the front end of a one-and-one situation and Gibson went down to the other end and nailed two free throws of his own to get the Leland lead back to eight points.

"(The game) was there for three quarters,” Stannard said. "We cut it to six and we went to the free-throw line and missed the front end of a one-and-one. They go down, we foul them and they hit both free throws. Our chance to cut it four has now turned into eight.”

In addition to Gibson, Whittaker turned in a strong game with 13 points and 14 rebounds. Lichty finished with five points, 10 rebounds and five assists and Eric Larsen six points.

Adam Nedow added all eight of his points in the second quarter to keep the Comets close. Northport led by as many as four in the period, but Adam Nedow prevented the Wildcats from getting any further ahead.

"Adam stepped up big time,” Stowe said. "He hasn't started the last two games because he tweaked his knee against Suttons Bay and he's been hobbled a little bit. He has barely practiced.

"Adam came in a gave us a quick spark.”

Northport also got a spark off its bench as Basil Stowe had eight points.

But the Wildcats, as usual, were led by the play of its seniors. Cody Brown finished with 23 points and nine rebounds, Mitchell 12 points, 12 rebounds and five blocks and Matthew Kehl 11 rebounds.