Berkley Loses to Farmington, 38-28

The Berkley and Farmington girls basketball teams played for more than position in the OAA Blue on Thursday night.

Farmington won the “Shootin' for a Cure” game at , 38-28. Both teams wore pink and all proceeds from the game were donated to the American Cancer Society.

Farmington (10-3, 9-0 OAA Blue) used an aggressive defense that caused 19 turnovers and outrebounded Berkley 32 to 18, with Aaron Howell leading Farmington with 13 rebounds.

“I thought our rebounding did a great job holding them to one possession," Farmington Coach David Browne said. “They snuck through our traps but we did a great job scrambling back to the ball."

Farmington had five steals in the first two quarters and used its speed to their advantage scoring on six fast break points.

Farmington’s front-court combo of Susan Roggencamp and Keshia Todd limited Berkley outside of the paint in the first half as Berkley guards Diamond Wilford and Stephanie Miller could not drive in.

Miller hit a three to make the game 14-11 at 3:38 in the second quarter but three straight turnovers helped Farmington. Howell hit a jumper to extend the lead to 16 to 11. She finished with 6 points.

Farmington led at the half 20-15 and the offense could not get going with Berkley’s swarming defense.

“I am proud of the girls tonight. We held them to under 40 points and that’s a pretty good thing. It was our goal tonight,” Berkley coach Jordan Gruppen said.

Berkley (7-6, 6-3 OAA Blue) had open looks from the perimeter but shot just 35 percent from the field and had costly lay-ups that would not go down during the fourth.

Farmington would get their scoring punch in the second half from Cherrish Williams who finished with 13 points.

“I was playing sloppy in the first half but I wanted to get points from causing contact in the line,” Williams said. “Getting points from the free throws really helped us.”

 Team Captain Blair Baker sank four free throws in the last two minutes for Farmington to seal the game.

“I thought we were playing a bit out of control in the second half and I wanted to calm it down a bit” Baker said.

“We had players try to do more and force things in the first half," coach Browne added. “In the second half, we went back to our motion offense and it worked for us and we felt more comfortable.”

Berkley was led by Hanna Carter, who had 8 points and 6 rebounds. 

“The shots were not falling tonight and you can only control so much,” Gruppen said.

Berkley travels to Royal Oak on Feb. 8.