ROMULUS, MI — A year ago Summit Academy North Boys Basketball coach Derek Clark booked an extra night at the team hotel in East Lansing ahead of the state championship game. The Dragons went on to fall just short against Warren Lincoln and that evening brought with it a lot of pain for the players and coaches involved, but it also brought with it a sense of motivation to come back this year and get the job done.
“They gave us our trophy first. So we could have exited the court, but I made the team stay there and watch it and kind of soak it in…It was just a real sour taste,” said Clark.
“It was a little hurt, it was hurtful. We wanted to win really bad,” added Marquan White.
But out of that hurt came a chance at redemption.
“Every time you think you don’t want to touch the line, you don’t want to run as hard as you can you think about that hurt and just get right into that mode,” said Jordan Fuller.
The Dragons are back in the District Finals, boast a 22-1 record, and haven’t lost to a team in the state of Michigan this year. However according to Coach Clark the record is not also an indicator of how the season has played out.
“It’s been a grind every step of the way. I’m not going to sit here and say it was easy. We’re fortunate to win every game. We had an overtime game, we had a game where we were down 20 in the first quarter, we had some locker room stuff we had to iron out, I had a 10 game suspension to start off the season, so it’s definitely been a roller coaster,” said Clark.
And like any roller coaster, it eventually comes to an end, and the Dragons can see the finish line. 6 games separate them from their first state championship in program history
“I don’t really feel pressure because I’ve been through so many things, so many positions my coaches put me in even before Coach DJ here, and it’s just like I don’t notice it anymore I’m ready for the moment,” said Fuller.
“I love the pressure it makes me feel like I got something to work for,” added White.
And the sacrifices they’ve had to make hasn’t gone unnoticed.
“They’ve sacrificed way more than me because I’ve asked of them to kind of not be a normal teenager. There’s nights where I schedule 8 am practice on Saturday knowing that there’s a party on Friday that they want to go to and I schedule that 8 on purpose so they can focus and they know that…I’m a real demanding type of coach, I ask a lot out of everybody that’s involved. So it’ll be mean a lot to everybody, it’ll be a breath of fresh air for about a week or two and then we off to that offseason training,” said Clark.
