Great Start,
Better Finish

Plymouth cages Lions
with complete performance

BY ED WRIGHT
Feb. 23, 2010, 11:55 p.m.

  In the estimation of head coach Mike Soukup, Plymouth's boys basketball team played its most complete game of the season Tuesday night, which was an unfortunate occurence for South Lyon.

  The Wildcats zapped the Lions, 49-33, to improve to 10-8. The hosts saw their record slip to 6-12.

  "Definitely our best game of the season," Soukup reiterated. "We came out from the get-go and attacked. We were much more aggressive than we were Friday night against Novi. All 11 players played and played well."

  Junior guard Mike Nadratowski led the Wildcats' attack with 17 points. He was complemented by strong efforts from Brennen Beyer (eight points), Dion Johnson (eight), Jake Morris (seven) and Pat Salo (seven).

  Taylor Saie led the Lions with just six points.

  "Mike did a lot of things well tonight," Soukup said of Nadratowski. "He got a couple baskets off penetration, a couple on offensive rebounds and he hit some outside shots. I was very pleased with his effort, as I was with a lot of the guys' effort."

  Plymouth flew out of the gates and built a 15-4 first-quarter lead. The 'Cats led 31-19 at the half and 43-26 with eight minutes to play.

  Plymouth was red hot from the free throw line, burying 22 of 23 attempts.

  The Wildcats will travel to Canton on Friday (7 p.m.) in what will be the rubber game of the cross-campus rivals' three-game season series.

  "Every good rivalry has a trilogy," Soukup said. "Hopefully, we come out as fired up as we were tonight."