Scott Keyes
Sports Scene
Keyon Addison walked out of the locker room disappointed.
Disappointed that the Saginaw High boys basketball team had just gotten beat 80-51 in a regional semifinal game to Carman-Ainsworth.
Disappointed that the game was his last as a Trojan.
“We didn’t play our game,” Addison said. “You have to give those guys credit; they played a great game, but we didn’t play Saginaw High basketball and we got beat.”
Addison left his mark during his four years as a Trojan. He played on the varsity three of those years, during which he helped lead Saginaw to a Class A title in 2012, to the semifinal round a year ago, and to another district championship this season.
Addison finished with 19 points in his final game. He will play football for Ferris State University next fall.
“Now my focus is on getting myself ready to play football at Ferris State,” he said after the loss to the Cavaliers. “It has been a fun ride, now it’s time to focus on getting myself ready to head to Big Rapids and hopefully start as a freshman. The ride has been bittersweet.”
Saginaw coach Julian Taylor said he hopes the younger players on the team will learn from the loss heading into next year.
“It’s still hard to see a player like Keyon Addison finish his career with a game like this,” Taylor said. “We basically got beat at our own game.”
The Cavaliers came into the game wanting to press and run, but their other goal was to frustrate Trojans’ sophomore center Algevon Eichelberger, who had had 42 rebounds in his last two district games. Eichelberger finished with six points and five rebounds.
He was whistled for his second foul early in the second quarter and sat the rest of the quarter.
“We knew their big guy could give us a lot of trouble,” Carman-Ainsworth coach Jay Witham said. “We wanted to go at him, get him in foul trouble. It worked.”
Carman-Ainsworth senior Justice Green was in charge of most of the destruction, finishing with 22 points and setting up teammate Cameron Morse for most of his 23 points.
Taylor was extremely impressed by the play of Green and Morse.
Green “would leak out on shots and get downcourt for easy layups, and that’s something we didn’t see on film,” Taylor said. “That surprised us.”