Southfield Christian had two big guns in knocking off Adrian Lenawee Christian Saturday at the Breslin Center in the Class D state finals. Southfield built a 20-13 lead after the first quarter but trailed 32-31 at halftime. Southfield ended the season at 26-1. The champs were led by Bakari Evelyn with 28 points and seven rebonds and Lindsay Hunter IV with 16 points.
Halee Nieman and Ellie Juengel of Midland Bullock Creek have made the Class C honorable mention list of the Associated Press 2014 all-state girls basketball team. One of their biggest wins of the season was 62-32 over Clare in a Class B regional quarterfinal. Nieman had 24 points and Juengel had seven points and nine rebounds.
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.”
Clare drew honors recently from the Associated Press’ girls basketball Class B all-state team. Lindsay Winter was named to the first team after a season in which she set the school’s assists career record at close to 300. She ended her career with 1,863 points. Her coach at Clare, Matt Rodenbo, receive all-state special mention as coach of the year.
Maddy Seeley of Alma has earned Class B all-state honors from the Associated Press’ girls basketball team. Seeley is a four-year varsity basketball and volleyball player. She passed the 1,000-points mark in December. She was a three-year captain. She averaged close to 27 points per game. Seeley will play for Northwood next season.
Payton Birchmeier of Corunna, a 6-1 senior, is on the Associated Press Class B girls basketball all-state team. Also on the team is Ally Haran of Flint Powers Catholic, a 5-9 senior.
Tania Davis of Goodrich led the Class B girls basketball all-state team for Associated Press as the Player of the Year. Davis helped Goodrich get two state titles but they could not do it this year despite an 18-2 regular-season record. She averaged 19.1 points 4.1 assists and 3.2 steals per game. Jason Gray of Goodrich was named coach of the year.
Scott Keyes
Sports Scene
It was a shot that was heard around the world.
Sacred Heart Academy’s Dustin Neyer’s dramatic heave gave the Irish a 50-47 regional title victory over Fulton and was seen by millions all over the world thanks to a video posted online by Morning Sun reporter Nate Schneider. Moments after Schneider posted the video, it went viral. The “Shot” was No. 1 on ESPN’s Top 10 List, was No. 1 on Fox Sports Play of Day, and was also seen on CNN and the popular sports website Deadspin.
Needlesss to say, Neyer was on cloud nine moments after hitting the dramatic shot at Big Rapids High School. “Unbelievable!,” he said. “Everything just fell in place, and I knew there wasn’t a lot of time left on the clock, so I just threw it up and fortunately for us it went in. Amazing. Truly amazing.”
Originally, the play was for senior Kevin Gamble in the post, but senior Brooks Hyble chucked the inbounds pass, causing the ball to deflect hard off the glass. Neyer just happened to be in the right place at the right time and and launched a 3-point prayer beyond the arc.
The ball bounced around the rim every which way before tickling the twine and giving the Irish the miraculous victory.
Three days after hitting the shot, Neyer was still grinning from ear to ear. “I still can’t believe it,” he said after watching the Sacred Heart girls basketball team win the Class D championship. “That shot will be something that I will remember for the rest of my life. It was pretty incredible. I watched the shot over and and over and still can’t believe it went. It was a pretty cool moment.”
Neyer finished the game with 11 points.
Irish coach Pat Theisen was left speechless after witnessing the shot. “I don’t think many people ever have seen a shot like that,” Theisen said. “It was one of those things where nothing went right as we drew it up, but fortunately for us it went in.”
Strange things happen in games, and Fulton coach Todd Walden said that was probably the strangest thing he has ever witnessed during a basketball game. Unfortunately for the Pirates, they were on the losing end of the scoreboard.
“With 0.8 seconds left on the scoreboard, you figure you are probably playing for overtime,” Walden said. “You have to give the guys running the clock credit, as they knew the rules and didn’t start the clock until it hit a player’s hands inbounds. It was an incredible play for sure. I feel for my players. This was definitely a tough loss for sure. These kids won a lot of games this season and showed a lot of character doing it. I am really proud of them.”
However, Sacred Heart’s season would come to an end a week later in the Class D quarterfinal round against Frankfort. This time around, the Irish were on the other end of a last-second shot and lost the game, 47-44. Frankfort’s Brandon Schaub drove the lane, made the basket, and hit the free throw with five seconds left to secure the victory.
Hyble scored 19 points to lead Sacred Heart, while Gamble added 12. Junior point guard Ben Goenner added 10.
The Irish finished the season with a 20-4 record.
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