Warren hits Simeon roadblock
PONTIAC In the time that both the Warren Blue Devils and Simeon Wolverines have been participants in the Pontiac Holiday Tournament, the Wolverines had gotten the best of Warren five times before they met again in Thursday's touranment championship.
How many times has Warren beaten Simeon? Zilch.
Two of those Simeon victories came in the tournament finals in 2005 and 2006, when the Derrick Rose-led Wolverines walked out with the hardware.
The sixth time was not charmed for Warren as Simeon (7-0) won its ninth Pontiac Holiday Tournament in 14 tries with a 58-50 victory.
"It feels great," Simeon coach Robert Smith said. "Kids worked hard."
The game was much closer than the final, with Simeon not taking the lead for good until 5:15 was left in the game. Warren's biggest lead was 6 points in the second quarter, and the Blue Devils led at halftime 29-28.
But Warren (10-2) went into a scoring drought for most of the second half as their legs got heavy.
"We played hard all week," Warren coach Chuck Ramsey said, "We started turning the ball over and they made some tough shots."
Darius Paul started the game on the right foot. He scored 8 points in the first quarter, including a banked 3. But after 2 free throws by Paul with 5:45 left in the first half, his scoring night was done as Simeon focused on stopping him the rest of the game.
Simeon only turned the ball over four times while gave it away 12 times. Simeon came up with 9 steals, including one by Jabari Smith right under the Simeon basket with 2:21 left to give the Wolverines the lead.
"They had excellent ball control all night," Ramsey said. "We wanted to get stops and score, and we couldn't do either one."
Terrell Green came off the bench for Simeon to ice the game from the foul line, shooting 4 for-4 in the last minute.
Nathan Boothe (10 points, 4 rebounds) reached double digits again and Jeremiah Jackson (8 rebounds) added 9 points for the Devils.
Jo Vaughn Gaines and Darius Paul both made the all-tournament second team.
Coach Ramsey simply summed up the tournament for the Devils like this: "We got our four games in, and now we will go home and go from there."
The Blue Devils have a full week of rest before they jump back into conference play against Lake Zurich next Friday night.