Detroit Country Day 62, Detroit Community 55

DETROIT -- Midway through the first quarter, Detroit Country Day lost one of its top players, junior Darnell Brown, to an injured ankle.

Brown's absence forced coach Kurt Keener to go to Plan B, which worked just fine.

Darryl Nobles scored 17, James Nelson 12 and Dale Brundidge 10 to lead Country Day (11-1) to a 62-55 victory at Detroit Community in a game between two of the state's top independents.

"Everybody's role had to change," Nobles said of Brown's absence. "Whoever replaced him had to step up. Defensively, it wasn't much of a factor. But offensively, there was a big difference."

With Brown, a 6-2 junior guard, on the bench, Country Day switched to a zone defense. Community often was befuddled with Keener's switch to the 2-3 or the 1-2-2.

When Community was patient enough to get inside, Country Day's 6-11 sophomore, DaShonte Riley, was there either to block (he had six) or alter a shot.

"It wasn't so much we didn't want to run with them," Keener said. "We did force some turnovers with our full-court pressure. What we wanted was to keep them off balance. When Darnell got hurt, we kind of settled into the zone and it worked so well we said, 'OK, let's stay with it.' "

Community (10-6), ranked No. 5 in Class C, trailed the entire game. It was down 34-18 with 3:02 left in the first half but ended the half with an 11-2 run .

Community cut its deficit to six points three times in the fourth quarter but couldn't come up with a clutch basket when it needed one.

Country Day led 60-53 with 30 seconds left when DaShonte Riley made his sixth and most important block.

Chase Simon, who led Community with 17 points, had what appeared to be an open look from the left corner, but DaShonte Riley quickly used his long reach for the block.

Senior Kawuan Covile, playing his third varsity game, added 13 points for Community, which made just 20 of 57 (35 percent) attempts from the field. Country Day shot 21-for-37 (56.7 percent).

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