Source: MI Prep Zone
Author: MATTHEW B. MOWERY
FARMINGTON HILLS >> You’d be excused if, at the beginning of the season, you’d have doubted that Farmington Hills Mercy would go into its final game in the Catholic League’s Central Division with a chance to win the title outright.
And if you thought Zora Pullen would be a prime reason that they were in that position — well, you might’ve been called crazy.
Yet, it was the 5-foot-8 senior captain — just seven months removed from tearing her right ACL — who scored 13 huge points in Tuesday’s 32-25 win over rival Birmingham Marian, putting the Marlins up a half-game with one to go.
“It’s unimaginable, actually,” Pullen said. “I didn’t think we were going to do it, because we’re just a young team, we lost a lot of good players, we don’t have any Division I-bound players, either. It’s great.”
The Marlins (9-4, 6-1 CHSL Central) started the season without Pullen, who had arthroscopic surgery in July, as well as without sophomore Jenna Schluter, who ‘re-tweaked’ the ACL that cost her all of her freshman season.
Now, they just need a win at Livonia Ladywood on Friday to close out a regular-season CHSL title. Marian (10-4) and Warren Regina are both a half-game back, at 5-2 in the league.
“Just a real good win for us. Puts us in real good position in the Central,” Mercy coach Gary Morris said. “Just really proud of our kids. I thought, ideally like in every game, you’d like to get off to a good start. The first time we played them, we were playing from behind, dug ourselves a huge hole, and made a nice run, but couldn’t get over the hump.
“Tonight, I really liked our approach, I thought we were ready to play.”
The 12-point loss to Marian the first time around the league was Mercy’s only defeat since December, and a fifth in a row against the Mustangs, dating back to Mercy’s miraculous last-second win at Calihan Hall in the 2014 CHSL championship game.
It’s helped immensely for the Marlins to be healthy. Schluter played limited minutes early on, while Pullen made her season debut in Mercy’s league opener on Jan. 8.
Now, they’re both full-go.
The Marlins certainly needed both of them, but Pullen was absolutely huge.
“We played her a lot of minutes tonight, put a lot on her, in terms of scoring,” Morris said. “I thought she did a very nice job of it.”
It helped that the Mustangs struggled shooting the ball all night, thanks to the stingy Marlins zone.
“Mercy came to play. They executed very well. My team got down. We struggled with that zone offense, because we just shot the ball so terribly — inside, outside. And you know, for years, that’s always been what weights most heavily on most teams: If you don’t make your shots, your defense sags, and it did. Mercy hit a couple big shots, and you could see them getting momentum,” Marian coach Mary Cicerone said.
“We just struggled, just didn’t have a good night — free-throw line, layup line, you-name-it line. We just struggled. And Mercy played a good game.”
Mercy had a slim lead for much of the game, but a 3-pointer by Jordyn Schluter made it a five-point margin with just over six minutes left. A steal and a layup by Lauren Montalbano made it a two-point again less than two minutes later, but the Marlins ran nearly a minute off the clock before getting a back-door layup by Katie Bryce to make it a two-possession lead with 2:51 left. Pullen drove baseline for a layup to make it a 30-25 lead with 58 seconds left, then Jenna Schluter hit two free throws with 33 seconds left for the final margin of victory.