Tough defense key for Pioneer

The Ann Arbor Pioneer boys team that took the floor against Birmingham Detroit Country Day on Friday night was supposed to be dramatically different than the one that advanced to last year's Class A semifinals.

"Here, I thought we'd be this high-scoring team," said Pioneer coach Rex Stanczak. "But when we needed to win a big game, we went right back to tough, hard-nosed defense."

Pioneer won a big game, beating the defending Class B state champ Country Day, 52-44.

Right off the bat there was the play of Zach Williams, who is generously listed as 6-feet-5. All he did was hold 6-11 DaShonte Riley, the state's top-rated junior, without a field goal and limit him to only two free throws.

"Zach did a great job, and we had great back-side help," Stanczak said.

But Country Day is anything but a one-man team and guard Darnell Brown, the team's leading scorer who has signed with Bowling Green, was limited to 17 points.

"We kept Brown out of the lane," said Stanczak. "He beat us the last two years. He got 27 points both times. We decided to try to force him to go left. He's pretty good going left, but he's so effective going right. We wanted to make him a little more of a jump shooter, and he did hit three threes on us, but he didn't kill us."

In addition to scoring a game-high 20 points, Matt Johnson, with help from Will Courtney, kept Brown under control.

"Matt got in the lane and got fouled and made his foul shots," said Stanczak. "Nate Robertson did a great job handling their pressure, because they can come at you."

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