{"id":193351,"date":"2026-02-25T17:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T17:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/193351\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T17:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T17:38:12","slug":"cougars-put-turmoil-aside-edge-west-bloomfield-to-claim-share-of-oaa-red-title-the-oakland-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/193351\/","title":{"rendered":"Cougars put turmoil aside, edge West Bloomfield to claim share of OAA Red title \u2013 The Oakland Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

WEST BLOOMFIELD \u2014 One day after their head coach was dismissed<\/a>, the Stoney Creek Cougars gutted out a 37-35 win on West Bloomfield\u2019s Senior Night to capture a share of the Oakland Activities Association Red Division crown, their first division title since winning the OAA White in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t pretty, but the girls did it,\u201d a visibly emotional interim head coach Todd Negoshian said. \u201cThe resiliency they\u2019ve shown me as a coach, me as an AD, our school, the way they\u2019ve handled this tough situation. It\u2019s taught a lot of us adults on how to deal with adversity. You can\u2019t say enough about what they did today after what they\u2019ve been through in the last 24 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels amazing to hang a banner your senior year, so we\u2019re so excited,\u201d senior Jadelyn Freeman said.<\/p>\n

Trailing 31-28 entering the fourth quarter, Stoney Creek clamped down defensively, got an offensive burst from Freeman, and then held on at the end to win a scrappy, defensive battle that was tight all night. Neither team led by more than five points in the second half as the teams struggled offensively all night in a game that was defined by its intensity and work rate.<\/p>\n

Both teams were contesting every shot. Rebounds were wrestled for, and there wasn\u2019t an inch of free space for anyone\u00a0 Appropriately, it was the defense that finally secured the win for the Cougars, who held West Bloomfield to just four points in the final period and closed them out in the final minutes through a total team effort defensively.<\/p>\n

The Lakers were just as tough tenaciously, anchored by a strong game off the bench from Ilyana Davis who led the team with 10 rebounds and two steals.<\/p>\n

Offensively, Sheridan Beal led everyone with 21 points, while Lia Taylor chipped in nine points for the Lakers. Freeman led Stoney Creek with 18 points, including seven of the Cougars\u2019 nine points in the fourth quarter. Calista Ivezaj just missed a double-double with nine points and 13 rebounds and Izzy Ivezaj added seven points and nine rebounds for the Cougars.<\/p>\n

With the host Lakers having Senior Night, the Cougars expected West Bloomfield to start strong \u2013 and they did. The Lakers jumped out to an 8-3 lead midway through the first quarter. But Stoney Creek was able to survive West Bloomfield\u2019s initial burst, and then ran off nine unanswered points to take a lead they would maintain until late in the third quarter.<\/p>\n

The win gives Stoney Creek (17-4 overall, 8-2 OAA Red) a share of the OAA Red crown with Clarkston and caps a chaotic 24 hours \u2014 with head coach Columbus Williams dismissed from his role on Monday<\/a> \u2014\u00a0for the Cougars, who then had to regroup immediately and play a crucial league game Tuesday with the division title on the line. And they came through on pure mental toughness.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir leadership within this group. Their mental toughness. Their resiliency as young adults to be able to do this is a testament to them, to their families, and to what they believe in,\u201d Negoshian said.<\/p>\n

West Bloomfield is now 16-5 overall and finishes 7-3 in the OAA Red.<\/p>\n

Photo gallery from Stoney Creek at West Bloomfield in OAA Red girls basketball action<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThose are the games we look forward to getting us ready for postseason. Of course, we\u2019d like to be on the other side of that. But we took an \u2018L.\u2019 But I don\u2019t look at it as a loss. I look at it as a lesson. So we\u2019ve just got to regroup and understand that we\u2019re going to see that the whole postseason,\u201d\u00a0 Lakers head coach Darrin McAllister said.<\/p>\n

Both teams have one more game this week before opening the state tournament next week. Stoney Creek will travel to Macomb Dakota on Thursday, and West Bloomfield will host Detroit Edison on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Columbus Williams out as Stoney Creek girls hoops head coach<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST BLOOMFIELD \u2014 One day after their head coach was dismissed, the Stoney Creek Cougars gutted out a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[2044,181,143,145,144,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-193351","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-high-school-sports","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-oakland","11":"tag-oakland-headlines","12":"tag-oakland-news","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}