SOUTHFIELD — The Oakland Activities Association Red Division basketball game between North Farmington and Southfield Thursday night was reminiscent of two great tennis players exchanging volleys at the U.S. Open. A great play on one end was matched with an equally impressive answer at the other.

The match point serve for North Farmington came in the form of senior point guard Kyle Vinales. Vinales scored 35 points, 15 of which came in the fourth quarter, as the Raiders downed the Bluejays 64-63.

While Vinales was the offensive catalyst in the fourth quarter, and throughout the game, the game’s two biggest scores came from two of his Raider teammates.

There were seven lead changes in the fourth quarter, with the last one coming when Vinales stole the ball from a Southfield player at mid-court and passed to a streaking Chris Stewart for a layup that put the Raiders up 61-59 with 32.6 seconds left on the clock. Vinales hit a step-back jump shot just prior to that score which tied the game at 59.

Leading 63-60 with six seconds on the clock, it was Robert Hogans who hit the clinching free throw to put North Farmington up 64-60 and prevent the Bluejays (8-4, 3-3 OAA Red) from having a chance to tie the game.

“I just wanted to win,” was the explanation Vinales gave for his fourth-quarter dominance. “I got confidence in all my teammates,” Vinales said. “(Stewart) had a better look at a shot (on the go-ahead score) so I gave it up because the defender thought I was going to shoot it and he was there and he made it.”

Southfield’s standout guard, Carlton Brundidge, also carried the load for his team — scoring a team-high 27 points. Brundidge hit a just-for-kicks 3 at the buzzer to make the score 64-63. The shot served as a form of poetic justice to ensure that the box score accurately reflected the nail-biter that took place on the court.

The Raiders (7-5, 3-3 OAA Red) led 33-22 at halftime, but the tempo of the game became much faster in the third quarter and the Bluejays outscored North Farmington 26-11 to take a 48-44 lead heading into the fourth quarter. Southfield led by as many as seven points in the fourth quarter (51-44) before North Farmington made its run.

“I thought we had the momentum but they came out and took it right away from us to start the second half,” said North Farmington head coach Tom Negoshian. “To our kids’ credit, they just came out in the fourth quarter with the attitude of ‘we just need to play’ and that’s what we talked about. We did a better job of getting stops defensively and, of course, it helps to have Kyle. That’s just a great win for our kids because they worked hard and thankfully it bounced our way at the end.”

Southfield had a chance to tie the game at 61 but a put-back attempt by Patrick Onwenu rimmed out and Vinales came down with the rebound for North Farmington with 14.8 seconds left.

“I think what we’re going to have to do is just to learn from this,” Southfield head coach Gary Teasley said. “These are the kind of games that can go either way and it just didn’t go our way. But it could be helpful for us because of our goals and what we’re trying to do. Being in close games is what we’re about and we want to be able to win those games. I see us making progress, now we just have got to find ways to seal the deal against good competition.”