Griffin needed at Sterling Heights, Dragons name new Girls Basketball Coach.

Written Friday October 5th at 2:05 PM

Lake Orion Athletic Director Chris Bell has named Bob Brydges as the team’s next Varsity Girls Basketball coach after coach Mike Griffin was needed at Sterling Heights to coach their Boys Basketball team confirmed on Twitter.

Griffin was the coach at Sterling Heights until 2014 when he took some time off before becoming the Dragons new coach last season.

Griffin will have to rebuild the Stallions program after it went 9-12 last season. Sterling Heights will be a better program this season because of Griffin. He is a teacher in the school district.

Lake Orion will have its fourth coach in four seasons but Brydges is familiar with the program coming over from Bloomfield Hills Lahser when it merged in 2013. Brydges was the coach for the Knights until they merged with Bloomfield Hills Andover and became Bloomfield Hills.

Brydges was in the running for the Blackhawks job but it went to Jeff Rubin.

Brydges came to Lake Orion and worked with four different coaches in Steve Roberts, Kevin Kopec, and Griffin. He coached the Freshman team for three seasons and the Junior Varsity team last year.

Brydges will have a team that has a ton of returners from last season from a team that went 4-16 and moved down the White. Lake Orion has Sophie Wyborski, Kendall Robertson, Paytin Shadaia, Kylie Anderson, Grace Berger, Abbey Maresch, and Meghan Marshall all returning.

Thoughts.

Griffin was needed at Sterling Heights to fix their program and I think he will do a very good job there.

I think it was a great move for Bell to keep the program in house with Brydges. Brydges was a Varsity coach but also coached in the Freshman, Junior Varsity, and the Oakview Eighth Grade program.

It will be very interesting to see what happens.

Stay tuned to OAA Now for the latest on this developing story.

Dragons Fall to Stoney Creek.

Written Tuesday October 2nd at 11:20 PM

Anytime you can’t close out the deal in a set or game then this is what happens.

The Lake Orion Dragons ranked third in the State could not close out the deal on Tuesday night against the ninth ranked Stoney Creek Cougars. The Dragons fell 25-21, 17-25, 28-26, 23-25, and 13-15 on their home floor.

The Dragons were led by Paige Briggs whom had 30 kills while Kendall Robertson added 10 kills. Wren McCaualy had 55 assists, Ciara Livingway had 43 digs, and Leigah Boes had 10 blocks.

The loss of Sydney Smith who is still out with an ankle injury clearly hurt in this game. With Smith out the Dragons lack of balance showed its ugly head on the night. Lake Orion had to rely on Briggs to carry them throughout and most of the season when Smith was out.

Smith is expected to be back for districts which will help a lot.

Lake Orion had three chances to close Stoney Creek out in the fourth set and likely win the Red crown but the Cougars had a lot more energy and it showed as they forced the fifth set.

The Dragons and Cougars battled to a 10-10 tie in the fifth set but Stoney Creek found a way to get that critical point each time to keep them ahead by one or two points.

Lake Orion now falls one game behind the Cougars in the Red standings.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all that the Cougars and Dragons will see each other again in the Regional Final although Clarkston, Utica Eisenhower, Romeo, and Adams might have a strong say about that come district time.

The Dragons are 41-4 on the season and will head to Adams to play the Highlanders on Thursday night.