Scott Keyes
Sports Scene
The city of Mt. Pleasant was a little spoiled by the success of their local high school basketball teams over the course of March Madness.
The Sacred Heart Academy girls surprised previously unbeaten Forest Park and walked away with a 56-53 victory in the Class D title game.
The Irish boys lost in the quarterfinals to Frankfort, but not before defeating Fulton 50-47 on Dustin Neyer’s prayer right before the buzzer to win a regional title.
Then the Mt. Pleasant boys took it one step farther, defeating a very good Carman-Ainsworth team to win their regional and throttling Howell in a Class A quarterfinal game to advance to the semifinal round.
Mt. Pleasant’s season came to a close in that semifinal game, where it lost to the team that ended up winning the state championship, the Muskegon Big Reds, 63-47.
This season was bittersweet for the Oilers, who finished the year with a 22-5 record, which doubled its win total from last year.
“I have been at Mt. Pleasant High School for 11 years, and the buzz surrounding the boys’ basketball team is pretty electric,” said athletic director Jim Conway. “Two years ago, our football team made it down to Ford Field, and this year we made it to the Breslin, not to mention the other successes of our other programs, but seeing what we accomplished on the basketball court is pretty cool to see.”
The Oilers semifinal appearance was the team’s first since 1981, when it was in Class B. If Mt. Pleasant would have advanced, it would have been the team’s first final game since 1937. Muskegon played in its first semifinal game since 1947 and went on to win a championship after defeating Bloomfield Hills High School in the final.
Mt. Pleasant knew it had something for the rest of the Saginaw Valley League North Division when it defeated Saginaw Arthur Hill in the second game of the season. Arthur Hill was the team everyone talked about prior to the season, but Mt. Pleasant walked away with the win. Although Mt. Pleasant lost to the Lumberjacks in their second meeting and lost twice to Saginaw High, it persevered and made a strong run in the tournament.
“People around the state who know basketball know how hard it is to get through our regional because you have to go through Saginaw or Saginaw Arthur Hill every year, or a good Flint team,” said Schell, an Oilers player during the early 1990s. “So just to get out of the regional, we were happy but not content.”
The Oilers faced a Big Reds team that featured this year’s Mr. Basketball, guard Deshaun Thrower, and 6-foot-9-inch junior shot-blocking force Devonta Davis, who is verbally committed to Michigan State University. They could have packed it in after falling behind in the third quarter, 43-20. However, this resilient team, led by three Buena Vista High School transfers, fought through the adversity and cut the lead to under double digits early in the fourth quarter, but Muskegon was too much to handle late in the game.
Senior William Roberson, Jr. and junior Joeviair Kennedy led Muskegon with 14 points, while senior guard Jordan Waire added 11 and junior center Deyonta Davis had 10 points, six rebounds, and six blocked shots.
Thrower scored only nine points, but he grabbed six rebounds to go with five assists. Kennedy had 13 of his points during the first quarter, as Muskegon jumped to an 18-9 lead.
The Oilers started five seniors in the game, with center Jaleel Hogan leading with 14 points and 10 rebounds and guard Aaron Leasher adding six points, eight rebounds, and five assists.
Hogan, along with former Buena Vista teammates Anton Cotton and T. J. Johnson, transferred to Mt. Pleasant last year and had to sit out half of the season.
This year, the Oilers came into the season refreshed and on a mission. The results on the court showed as the year progressed.
“As a team, we knew what kind of talent we had on the team,” said Hogan after the Oilers’ quarterfinal victory over Howell. “After everything that happened with transferring, and now being a part of something like this is pretty special.”