Cagers were using their snow days to prepare for this week as others were using the days off from school to relax and finish homework.
One of the biggest challenges they were prepping for is this Friday’s game against Southfield for the Clarkston Boys Varsity Basketball team – as both want to win the OAA league outright.
“Southfield will be a battle at home,” said senior Jordan Dasuqi. “It’s going to be a tough game.”
He admitted the league title is on the mind of the Wolves as they get ready but they need to do what they did last time against the Bluejays – win.
“We were up in the first half before,” Dasuqi added. “We have to make sure it happens again. We played very good defense in the first half and it led to everything else. They made a couple runs against us so we need to cut down on those runs. If we make it happen and we play good defense like we did last time I am sure we will win.”
The Wolves lost to Carman-Ainsworth on Feb. 5 in their most recent battle on the court, 53-50.
“We had a bad shooting night,” he reflected. “Even when we are not shooting well we need to get inside and be able to pull out with a win. We didn’t.”
Dasuqi added it was a learning experience especially since the game had a playoff feel to it.
“It was loud in there. It was two good teams,” he said.
“We learned things aren’t going to go our way every game. We have been shooting well all season long. What this shows us is if we are not shooting well, if we are not playing well we still need to come out with a victory. We will get that as we go on. I would rather it happen now than in the playoffs.”
Clarkston led the game at the end of the first quarter by four points, 11-4. By the end of the next quarter Carman-Ainsworth took the lead by four points and held onto it for the rest of the game.
The Wolves were behind 50-43 with 3:30 remaining in the game but pulled themselves up and with a field goal from Nick Owens put the score to 52-50 with 14 seconds to go.
Dasuqi led the team with 24 points and Owens had 15 points for the night.
Clarkston (10-3) opened the week on Tuesday against West Bloomfield in a league battle.
They host their next three games – Southfield on Friday, Troy on Monday and Flint Northern on Tuesday. JV begins at 5:30 p.m. and varsity follows at Clarkston High School.