63-Pointer Stirs Memories of UP Legends
February 29, 2020
By Ron Pesch
Special for Second Half
For the first time since 1970 – 50 years ago – and for only the 10th time in Upper Peninsula boys basketball history, a player has scored 60 or more points in a single game.
And that Houghton showing has stoked memories of legendary U.P. scoring showcases going back more than a century.
For the first time, the effort was for naught, at least from a win-loss standpoint, as Houghton dropped a nonconference road contest to Ishpeming 88-83 on Feb. 4. Brad Simonsen hit 23 of 45 field goal attempts, including 7 of 18 from beyond the 3-point arc, as Houghton pushed the play, hoping to narrow what had been a 10-point halftime margin. The 6-foot-6 senior, signed by Michigan Tech, was 10 of 13 from the free throw line and scored 24 points in the fourth quarter, ending the night with 63.
The performance topped Houghton’s school record of 60 points, set by Gary Lange in 1970. The total ranks 14th across the entire state for single game points in a contest, and tied Simonsen for sixth highest above the bridge. There, the mark equaled the top single-game output posted by Stephenson’s Mel Peterson, considered by many the greatest cager ever to come out of the Upper Peninsula.
“Marvelous Mel”
Peterson was the son of a minister and one of 10 children (and eight boys). His older brother, George, broke the U.P. scoring record in 1949 with 44 points in a game for Stephenson High School. The family moved away from the Upper Peninsula following George’s graduation, ultimately landing in southeastern Idaho.
There, Mel emerged as an outstanding athlete for Idaho Falls High School. Standing 6-foot-4½, Peterson’s growth occurred mostly during his freshman year.
“I played quite a bit on the varsity my sophomore year,” recalled Peterson recently. “My junior year I started out very, very slow but ended up very good. (However,) I fractured my ankle with about a minute to go in the semifinals of the (1955) state tournament, which we won.”
Peterson led all scorers with 25 points and dominated the boards that night, but had to be helped from the floor, then didn’t play in the title contest. “We lost the state tournament by three points, (43-40 to Kellogg). I was a cheerleader. … It would have been fun to play in the final game.”
When his father received a call to serve the Mission Covenant Church in Wallace, Michigan, about seven miles south of Stephenson, the family returned to the Upper Peninsula for Peterson’s senior year.
“At that time, it was nothing like it is now, where you can find anything about anybody. Then, that wasn’t the case at all,” Peterson said. “So, when we came back, no one had any idea of where I lived before, if I played or not.”
Indeed, prior to football season, one newspaper report indicated Peterson had transferred in from North Dakota, while another listed him as coming from Illinois. Regardless, Peterson emerged as a solid football player at Stephenson High in the fall of 1955. But it was on the basketball court where his scoring and rebounding prowess quickly loomed. He opened the season with 33 points in a win over Gladstone, despite fouling out early in the fourth quarter.
By January, the media had taken to calling him “Marvelous Mel” as Peterson averaged 32.3 points in his first half-dozen games for the Eagles. He drove Stephenson to a 15-1 regular-season record, posting 11 games over 30 points and scoring more than 40 in six.
On Jan. 21, 1956, he poured in 63 points in an 89-44 win over Manistique, shattering his brother’s school record. Mel nailed 25 of 38 shots from the field and 13 of 16 from the free-throw line. At the time, the scoring total exceeded the previous known best in the U.P. of 60 points, scored by Norbert Purol in February 1952. (Purol, from Ironwood St. Ambrose, would later play two seasons of AAU ball in Chicago before matriculating at Kentucky Wesleyan, earning four letters between 1956 and 1959. Wesleyan ended the 1957 season as runner-up to Wheaton College in the inaugural NCAA Small College Tournament – now known as Division II.)
“I don’t remember a great deal about a lot of it. That was so long ago,” said Peterson, laughing. “I guess the thing I appreciate most about the game was that my coach (Duane “Gus” Lord), let me play the whole game, which didn’t happen real often. Probably the thing I remember most about the whole year is that we played a Catholic school, Lourdes, from Marinette, Wisconsin. The first game we played them we beat them 110 to 44. The second game we lost 68-66.”
Peterson’s regular-season total of 570 points also exceeded Purol’s U.P. record of 556 posted over 19 games in 1952. His regular-season average, which had climbed to 35.6, topped the previous best of 29.6, posted by Pete Kutches in 1952 for Escanaba St. Joseph. Then Peterson pushed the per-game-average even higher in the postseason.
Seeing more playing time in the playoffs, “Marvelous Mel,” notched more than 30 points in all seven postseason games (exceeding 40 in three of the contests and 50 once), leading Stephenson to the MHSAA Class B championship win against Detroit St. Andrews in sudden-death overtime, 73-71. There he scored the game-tying bucket with 17 seconds remaining in the three-minute extra frame, and then sunk the game winner 26 seconds into sudden death, where the first team to gain a two-point advantage was proclaimed the victor. That 1956 season saw three of the four basketball championships awarded to U.P. teams.
Peterson finished with 849 points on the year – at the time the best single-season performance in MHSAA history. He averaged 36.9 points across 23 contests – currently eighth in the MHSAA record book.
Following graduation, Peterson nearly signed to play at the University of Minnesota, but felt a better fit at Wheaton College, outside Chicago. There, he earned three All-American honors. As a freshman in 1957, he led Wheaton to victory in that first NCAA Small College Tournament championship game against Wesleyan, earning Most Outstanding Player honors along the way. Today, he remains Wheaton’s all-time leader in career points, points per game, field goals made and career rebounds, all accomplished “without the benefit of a 3-point line, which had yet to be implemented.”
Peterson, who helped the USA team win gold at the 1963 Pan American Games in Sao Paulo, Brazil, played two games for Baltimore in the National Basketball Association (NBA) before a heart condition sidetracked his career. Once the issue was repaired, he returned to play 134 games over three seasons in the American Basketball Association, earning an ABA league championship with the Oakland Oaks in 1969. In 2019, he was inducted into the Small College Basketball National Hall of Fame.
The High-Scoring Sixties
Roger Roell, a senior at Channing, topped Peterson’s U.P. single game record with a 67-point performance in early January 1960 by dropping 31 field goals and five free throws in a 105-55 win over Michigamme.
Just over seven weeks later, Jim Manning scored 69 for Trout Creek against Amasa in another lopsided affair, 140-47 (then, a U.P. record for highest team score. The team’s 44 points in the fourth quarter was also a U.P. mark at the time. Trout Creek’s coach, Bruce Warren began substituting in the second quarter).
Manning, a junior, finished the 1959-60 season as the first player in U.P. history to exceed 600 points in one regular season, totaling 608 over 18 games. He would later pitch in the Major Leagues.
Roell finished second with 569 points in 18 regular-season contests. Third on the regular-season scoring list was another junior, Erwin Scholtz of Hermansville, who tallied 505 across 18 games.
As a senior, the 6-foot-5 Scholtz would post 71 points against Channing, a new benchmark for points in a game in the Upper Peninsula.
Or was it?
The Master’s Thesis
Perhaps because of the media coverage of Scholtz’s accomplishment, in 1962 the Crystal Falls Diamond Drill ran an article detailing the recently unearthed exploits of Ed Burling some 50 years prior. Richard Mettlach, football and baseball coach at Crystal Falls, had uncovered the Burling story.
Mettlach, “in the process of preparing a history of local high school sports which he submitted as a part of the preparation for his master’s degree … discovered that the newspaper records of the early years of high school basketball tell of a match between Iron River and Crystal Falls (played during the 1910-11 season).”
Crystal Falls had downed Iron River, 107-27, according to Mettlach’s research, and Burling had scored all but 10 of Crystal Falls’ points.
“Basketball was different in those days,” said Burling when interviewed by the Diamond Drill in January 1962. Then 68 years old and working as the postmaster in Crystal Falls, he recalled, “when one man was hitting the basket well, the rest of the team fed him the ball and let him shoot. I couldn’t miss that night.”
According to the article, “Burling said as he recalled the game, he made 98 points that night. It appears that 97, however, reportedly verified in two newspaper accounts of the game, will have to be the figure used in the record book.”
Burling recalled that the majority of his shots were from in front of the basket and that rules of the day allowed the top shooter on the team to attempt the free throws.
“The 97 point scoring record would probably have never been uncovered if it had not been for Mettlach’s research,” added the Diamond Drill.
Three more U.P. additions
In 1966, Bob Gale of Trout Creek scored 60 against Mercer, Wisconsin. Gale would later play at Michigan State.
Houghton’s Lange scored his 60 as the Gremlins walloped Painsedale Jeffers, 134-62, on January 23, 1970. One week later, Larry Laitala dropped 65 as Champion crushed Felch, 114-71.
“We had a very good team that year. We had a lot of wings and normally, I wouldn’t play the whole game. My coach was Dominic Jacobetti (who played at Negaunee St. Paul, then Northern Michigan University) and he was a pretty prolific scorer in the U.P. It was one of those nights where the rim was real big,” recalled Laitala, chuckling.
Laitala finished second to Lange in regular-season scoring, 557 to 523, with each athlete playing 17 games.
“Houghton is possibly the best team in any class in the Upper Peninsula,” wrote Hal Schram in the Detroit Free Press, who predicted an MHSAA state title for the team noting that many felt Lange was the top player north of the bridge. The Gremlins, at 17-0, finished as the top-ranked team in Class C in the weekly press polls assembled by the Free Press, The Associated Press and United Press International.
But the season ended earlier than expected for both teams. Houghton fell to St. Ignace in a Regional Semifinal.
“We were beat by our archrival, Republic (61-55) in the first game of the (Class D) Districts, which was kind of an upset,” added Laitala.
Prior to Simonsen’s accomplishment, Lange and Laitala were the most recent players above the Straits of Mackinac to equal or exceed the 60-point minimum established in the MHSAA record book.
The Challenge of Traceability
With modern-day electronic archiving of a number of the state’s newspapers and the accessibility of newspapers on microfilm, an effort has been made to add dates to single-game records, where once only the season of accomplishment was listed. The work continues.
Today, more than 100 years later, the “two newspaper accounts” used back in the 1960s for verification of Burling’s scoring accomplishment have not resurfaced. Hence, neither the date of the game, nor details from period accounts are available for study. That, combined with knowledge that basketball games from the time were usually low-scoring affairs, means doubt is still cast on the mark.
After investigation, the record was accepted by Crystal Falls historian Malcolm McNeil and U.P. sports archivist, Jim Trethewey, a former sports editor of the Marquette Mining Journal who travelled to Crystal Falls to interview Burling. MHSAA historian Dick Kishpaugh ultimately added the performance to the state record book. Questions about the legitimacy of Burling’s total began almost immediately and have resurfaced every 10 years or so. Todd Schulz, a former sports columnist at the Lansing State Journal, wrote extensively on the chase in 2012.
One of the individuals still working to help solve the mystery is Al Anderson of Crystal Falls.
The Diamond Drill was a weekly paper during Burling’s high school days, and newspapers of the time generally didn’t separate prep sporting news into sections. When reported upon, accounts of high school games were usually included in a ‘School Notes’ column.
The season was, without question, a success. “Winning eight out of ten games played, and having three challenges refused, the local basket ball team lay claim to the U.P. championship for the season of 1910-11,” stated the Diamond Drill in the March 25, 1911 edition.
Still, reports uncovered from the period publication continue to cast doubt on the plausibility of the feat occurring in a high school game. “… More basket ball and less indoor foot ball next time will look better to the audience,” noted the newspaper about a 17-10 victory over Niagara, Wis., in mid-December 1910.
“The basket ball game last night resulted in a dispute near the end of the last half with the score 13 to 12 in favor of Crystal Falls. Iron Mountain disputed a decision by the referee and withdrew from the floor,” was the account in the Feb. 18, 1911 edition of the paper.
“There’s an article that was cut out of the physical copy of the December 10, 1910 Diamond Drill,” reports Anderson, who’s been seeking confirmation in fits and starts for nearly a decade. “It looks like it could be the ‘School Notes.’ portion. It’s missing on microfiche copies as well. Perhaps that’s it.”
So the chase to verify continues.
2019-20 season brings sudden burst
Sophomore phenom Emoni Bates of Ypsilanti Lincoln is the latest prep player to etch his name in the MHSAA record book for scoring 63 points. He accomplished the feat in a 108-102 double-overtime win against Chelsea two weeks after Simonsen’s accomplishment. Statewide, that means 34 players have now scored 60 or more points in a game – 30 boys (10 in the U.P. and 20 in Lower Michigan) and four girls (one in the U.P and three in the Lower Peninsula).
Will the list be reduced by one? Time and additional research will tell.
Ron Pesch has taken an active role in researching the history of MHSAA events since 1985 and began writing for MHSAA Finals programs in 1986, adding additional features and "flashbacks" in 1992. He inherited the title of MHSAA historian from the late Dick Kishpaugh following the 1993-94 school year, and resides in Muskegon. Contact him at [email protected] with ideas for historical articles.
PHOTOS: (Top) Brad Simonsen celebrates becoming Houghton's all-time leading scorer Wednesday. (2) Stephenson's Mel Peterson. (3) Trout Creek's Jim Manning. (4) Houghton's Gary Lange. (5) Trout Creek's Bob Gale. (Top photo courtesy of Houghton Daily Mining Gazette. Peterson photo courtesy of Upper Peninsula Sports Hall of Fame. Houghton and Trout Creek photos courtesy of those schools' yearbook departments.)
Century of School Sports: Boys Basketball's Best 1st To Earn MHSAA Finals Titles
By
Ron Pesch
MHSAA historian
March 11, 2025
Administratively, the world changed when the present Michigan High School Athletic Association was formed in the fall of 1924. That October, Battle Creek High School’s Alden W. ‘Tommy’ Thompson was hired on a full-time basis as state director.
“This position, which is a new one in Michigan, has for its purpose the centralizing of authority over all secondary school athletics in the state, including public high schools, and all private and parochial institutions,” noted the Battle Creek Enquirer at the time of his hiring. “It will take the place of the old Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Association, which was composed of the principals of the high schools of the state.”
Coach and director of athletics at Battle Creek since 1919, Thompson moved to Lansing following the close of Battle Creek’s football season and began his new position on November 17. While the job included full management of tournaments, there was little time to alter processes and procedures for the winter season. So, the 1925 basketball tournament – now celebrating its 100th year under guidance from the MHSAA – really did not look much different from the year previous.
Tournaments to name Michigan boys basketball champions date back to 1916. A recent enlargement of Waterman Gymnasium at the University of Michigan prompted the school to host a tournament in 1917. With four available courts, it was felt that the tournament could handle more than 60 teams and still be run in three days.
In 1920, the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Association took control of prep athletics and the tournament. Among its first actions was to split the finals between Ann Arbor and East Lansing each year. That year, Class A final-round games were played at U of M in Ann Arbor, while Class B games were hosted at Michigan Agricultural College (M.A.C.) – now Michigan State University – in East Lansing. Sites were reversed in 1921. The addition of Class C, segmenting the tournament further, came in 1922, and those games were played in the same city as Class B. (The pattern was followed until 1926, when Thompson and staff added a championship round for Class D to the mix.)
The Mechanics of a Tournament
In January, Director Thompson announced that District tournaments (sometimes referred to as sectional) would be held at six locations across the state, designed to reduce the field of contenders to 24 teams for the final three rounds of the tournament. They would be held at Central Normal in Mount Pleasant (two teams advancing each from Class A, B, and C), Western State Normal in Kalamazoo (two teams each from Class A, B, and C), Michigan State Normal in Ypsilanti (two teams each from Class A, B, and C), the Detroit public schools (two from Class A), Petoskey (one from Class B and two from Class C), and Northern State Normal at Marquette in the Upper Peninsula (one regardless of Class to play in Class B) in mid-March.
The final rounds of the 1925 games were scheduled for March 26–28. Continuing the set-up of rotating sites, winners and runners-up in the Class A Districts received invitations to the playoff at M.A.C. while the Class B and C pairs were invited to the tourney at U of M.
Class A was defined as schools with enrollments of 500 or more students, Class B – 175 to 499, and Class C – 100 to 174. Schools with enrollments of fewer than 100 students comprised Class D and had the option to play in the Class C tournaments. Those hard and fast enrollment numbers meant an imbalance of teams in each class. Simply put, there were fewer schools in Class A and Class B than there were in Class C, and hence, fewer games needed to establish a final field of teams.
This method for setting the field for the final rounds certainly fashioned some stellar matchups. Sampled news from the time – sometimes conflicting in the account – gives a feel for the coverage by sports reporters from the daily and weekly newspapers.
Narrowing the Field
The seventh annual District Basketball Tournament hosted at Central Michigan Normal School – now Central Michigan University – featured a whopping 76 teams! Due to the number of schools of small enrollment competing, officials split opponents across six classifications: A (4), B (11), C (16), D (20), E (16), and F (9), with only A, B, and C eligible for the upcoming M.A.C. and U of M events. Games kicked off on Wednesday evening, March 18, with five Class B games. According to media coverage, this was the largest of any high school District tournament ever held in Michigan, with games played across four floors. A total of 66 contests were played during the two days and three evenings of the tournament.
“The city was almost taxed to capacity by the big crowd of players and rooters,” stated the Isabella County Enterprise in coverage of the games. “The athletic department wishes to thank the citizens who co-operated by renting their rooms at a very reasonable price to our guests.”
“Between 700 and 800 boys were entertained in Mt. Pleasant homes. From all parts of the district came scores of automobiles bringing rooters from the home towns,” recalled the 1925 Central Normal yearbook in its two-page remembrance of the event. “Effervescent high school youth was in its glory. … The large gymnasium was packed with spectators hours before the principal games started, and crowds filled three other floors where elimination contests were in progress. Cheer after cheer echoed through the Normal gymnasium from eight o’clock in the morning until after eleven o’clock at night. The court became a kaleidoscope of colors as new teams arrayed in brilliant hues followed each other in quick succession.”
Class B was declared as the most exciting series of the Central Michigan tourney. Among the entries was Reed City, state champions among the Class C teams in 1924. With enrollment just slightly above the limit, they bumped into Class B but still finished the regular season unbeaten. In the opening round that Wednesday evening, the team “celebrated its advent into faster company by defeating Lapeer, 36-8,” according to special coverage of the tourney in the Saginaw News Courier.
On Thursday evening, the Red and Black found themselves in a front-to-back thriller with Alma. Trailing 10-9, Reed City nailed a field goal just as the timekeeper’s final whistle blew marking the game’s end. The crowd rushed the floor in victory. But simultaneous to the shot, a referee had called a foul. After the two officials consulted with the timekeeper, it was determined the foul occurred before the attempt, so the basket was waved off. The court was cleared, the teams called back, and Reed City was awarded two shots from the line. The celebration was dramatically short-lived. “Due to the extreme nervous tension attending such a situation, neither of the free throws was successful,” detailed a sympathetic writer in the Osceola County Herald.
The “Southwestern Michigan Sectional Tournament” held at Western Normal – today’s Western Michigan University – featured 60 schools: nine in Class A, 16 in Class B, and 35 in Class C. Grand Haven, the defending Class B champion, and St. Joesph, runner-up to the 1924 title, were again expected to emerge as representatives in 1925. To the surprise of many, Sturgis topped St. Joseph in the semifinals, 19-11, then downed Grand Haven, 21-16, in the final round of the ‘B’ games. Front page news in the Grand Haven Tribune noted disappointment. “The Havenites took the floor in foot-weary condition and couldn’t get started until the final half when they outscored Sturgis. … The entire Grand Haven team was tired from their three hard preceding games and the effects of (a) hard season of basketball were easily seen.” Still, as runner-up, the team would have a chance for redemption in Ann Arbor.
Jackson, the defending Class A champion, again emerged from a field of eight Class A schools in the District tournament at Michigan State Normal College in Ypsilanti.
At Northern Normal, Lake Linden – located about 30 miles from the northern-most point of Michigan – beat Negaunee, 33-26, for the right to play in the downstate tourney.
At Detroit, the city league championship tournament established Southeastern with clear claim to the metropolitan crown, but Detroit Northwestern and Detroit Southwestern tied for second place in the final league standings. Time would not allow a playoff between the two teams to determine a logical second representative.
Owen. A. Emmons, supervisor of athletics of Detroit high schools, initially pitched the idea of sending the three Detroit schools to the M.A.C. tournament. Thompson rejected the idea stating each District could send no more than two teams. Emmons countered with sending the schools that tied for second to East Lansing and giving Southeastern an automatic berth to the era’s prestigious annual National Cage tournament hosted by the University of Chicago, entering its eighth year that April. Thompson volleyed back that “only a state championship team which had won its title on the playing floor was eligible to represent Michigan at Chicago.”
Forced by Thompson to decide, Emmons chose Southwestern as the second representative based on a better overall showing in the regular season, and a point differential displayed in the league championship series.
With that determined, the field was set for the championships.
The bigger task for the MHSAA and their director still lay ahead.
“There has been some fault found by the schools in the manner of conducting the district tournaments in basketball,” noted the Detroit Free Press. “It is claimed that 60 or 75 teams cannot (properly) decide a district champion in the space of two or three days. Teams that are up in the running for the honors must play two and sometimes three games a day, and the district tourney gradually develops into an endurance contest with the title depending more upon brawn than upon skill and cleverness of play.”
Thompson recognized this and stated he was working on a new plan with the state’s athletic council, with a goal of determining a new approach following the 1925 tournament.
The 1925 Championships
According to the Lansing State Journal, “permanent trophies will be awarded the winner and the runner-up, while individual medals will be given members of the two teams.” Drawings for first-round matchups took place during the afternoon of Thursday, March 26, once coaches arrived. A consolation tournament was scheduled for Class B and Class C teams defeated in the opening round. There would be no such tournament for Class A.
Jackson and Kalamazoo again went head-to-head in the first-round quarterfinals at M.A.C. Kalamazoo had entered the postseason with a dismal 4-9 regular-season record. Among its losses was an 18-11 defeat by Jackson in January during which Kalamazoo led 9-5 at the half, shutting down Jackson star Jessie Drain, who was 0-9 shooting before the break. But Jackson tied the game in the third quarter, 10-10, then cracked the visitors’ defense in the fourth for a convincing win.
Minus their captain, Bruce Masselink, Kalamazoo put up a major fight in the rematch. “Jackson had anything but a walkaway when if defeated Kalamazoo Central 29 to 21 in an overtime game,” stated the Jackson News. “Time and again Kalamazoo had opportunities to put the game on ice in the last quarter, but missed easy shots and kept Jackson in the race for the state championship …”
Jackson held a 13-7 lead at the half, but watched it rapidly evaporate. The deficit cut to 17-13 at the end of three quarters, Kalamazoo tied the game, 19-19, with a minute to play. A shot by Kalamazoo with 30 seconds remaining would have likely won the contest, but it missed the mark, forcing the five-minute extra frame. The Orange and Black “in the overtime period showed some of the fastest basketball displayed during the entire first round … working the ball down the floor for five easy baskets …”
The State Journal estimated that “about 700 saw the four” Class A Quarterfinal games at M.A.C.
In Class B at Waterman Gymnasium, Grand Haven and Sturgis were rematched in the Quarterfinals. C.O. Reed covered the game from the “historic floor” in a special report to the Tribune.
“Battling fiercely and with an even chance to win until the final whistle blew, Grand Haven High School lost to Sturgis 19-16. “Both played in whirl-wind fashion (and) were exchanging score for score with rapidity and the guarding was terrific.” Tied 16-16, a free throw by captain Laurence ‘PeeWee’ Clemmons and a hook shot field goal by Don Grove allowed Sturgis to advance.
Jackson St. Mary’s had grabbed a Regional title in Class C with a “bitterly contested” triumph over Farmington, which had been a semifinalist in 1924. In that game, the Blue Devils were led by “flashy little forward” Lawrence ‘Lorry’ Heuman. Trailing 9-7 late in the game, St. Mary’s broke up a Farmington stall, allowing Heuman to nail “a sensational side shot from near the center of the court” for an 11-9 victory. Heuman finished with 10 points.
The teams met again in the Quarterfinals, this time with late heroics by St. Mary’s Donald Tobin, who, sent to the foul line with less than 20 seconds to play, sank a free throw to break a deadlock, giving the Blue Devils a dramatic 15-14 win.
In yet another rematch, this time in the Class C Semifinals hosted Friday at Ann Arbor, Three Oaks and Bridgman – county rivals and final-round opponents at the Southwestern Regional – squared off. A quarterfinalist at the 1924 Finals, Bridgman had topped Three Oaks, 14-10, at Western. “Coach F.C. Reed’s (Bridgman) youngsters did not exhibit a brand of basketball that would set the world afire but was good enough to win five rounds of games during the last two days,” stated the Kalamazoo Gazette. Three Oaks flipped the script at U-M, defeating Bridgman 22-20 to advance to the title game with Jackson St. Mary's.
For the first time, a play-by-play account of Friday’s Class A Semifinal round games at East Lansing was broadcast by a radio station – Michigan Agricultural College’s recently-created AM station, WKAR. There, Detroit Southeastern trounced Grand Rapids Union 31-20, while Jackson dumped Detroit Southwestern 25-18. This set-up a rematch for the Class A title, won the year prior by Jackson, 17-11.
The Finals
That rematch, also broadcast on WKAR, sadly was a letdown as Southeastern crushed Jackson, 44-22. Jackson outplayed the Detroit squad in the opening quarter, leading 11-7, before its game collapsed. From that point on, Southeastern’s defense forced Jackson to shots near mid-court, and grabbed a 20-11 lead at the half, then a 28-15 edge after three quarters. “So effective was the Southeastern five man defense,” stated the State Journal, “that it appeared to the spectators as though a fence had been stretched across the floor.” Detroit’s Harold Hendricks and Norman Daniels led all scorers with 17 and 15 points, respectively, while captain Nolen Putnam added eight. Hendricks and Putnam were praised for their defense. Drain and Walter Hodgboom each connected on four field goals for Jackson.
The win brought the Class A title back to the metropolitan district for the first time in five years, when Northwestern defeated Northern, 17-13, in an all-Detroit showdown in 1920. With the win, Southeastern earned the trip to Chicago for a spot in the National Cage tournament.
In Class B at Waterman, Sturgis and Lake Linden, both 20-plus point margin winners in the Semifinals, skirmished. In a tight ballgame into halftime, with the U.P. representatives leading 15-14 at the break, coach Andy Carrigan’s Sturgis squad proved “too fast for the Lake Linden quintet and slowly but consistently piled up” a 36-25 triumph. Clemmons led Sturgis with 10 points followed by the Grove brothers, Roger and Don, with nine points apiece. Senior center Wayne Nestor led Lake Linden with 12 points.
The Sturgis squad returned home to huge acclaim, with University of Michigan basketball coach Edwin J. Mather speaking to the team at their postseason banquet. Mather picked a Class B and Class C all-tournament team following the games.
Interestingly, after graduation Roger Grove earned All-America honors in football and basketball at Michigan State, then played five seasons in the NFL for Green Bay. Nestor went on to letter in baseball and basketball at Western Normal, then taught and coached at, ironically, Detroit Southeastern. In 2020, the estate of Lester and his wife June left a $2.5 million endowment to Lake Linden-Hubbell Public Schools, with investment returns funding annual scholarships for graduating seniors.
“Without a doubt, the most thrilling encounter of the afternoon was the final game of Class C,” noted U-M’s newspaper, The Michigan Daily. Once again, St. Mary’s forward, Heuman, was the star of the game. “A see-saw battle throughout, with less than two minutes to play,” according to the Jackson News, “Three Oaks was up 20-19, when “standing alone in mid-floor (Heuman) shot the ball through the net, without even touching the rim” to give St. Mary’s the lead. A pair of free throws by Saroldi gave Three Oaks back the advantage 22-21, with 50 seconds to play.
“Keen passwork brought the ball to the basket,” wrote a “staff correspondent” from the Citizen Patriot, one of two papers in Jackson recapping the game for readers. “(Fred) Smith, pivot man, cut across court at the opposite side,” stated the News. Heuman shot a pass to Smith “standing unnoticed about six feet to the left of the loop,” said the Citizen-Patriot report. “Smith jumped, caught the sphere,” according to the News, “and heaved it through the hoop to complete one of the greatest plays of the entire tournament.”
“Excellent stalling … was enacted by the Blue Devils for the final eight seconds of the game,” continued the Citizen-Patriot.
“The gun sounded and St. Mary stood crowned the Class ‘C’ champions of Michigan. … For the first time in the history of interscholastic athletics in Michigan, a parochial team won a championship sanctioned by the state high school league,” concluded the News.
Heuman led all scoring with 11 points, while Robbie Decker paced Three Oaks with eight, followed by Joe Savoldi and Richard Potts, each with seven. Smith added six points for St. Mary's.
Earlier that school year, St. Mary’s laid claim to a Michigan parochial football title. Struggling financially, parish members and alumni used the success of the athletic teams to rally support.
In total, Heuman scored 30 of the team’s 58 points during the trip to Ann Arbor. The 5-foot-5 all-around athlete was a back on the football team, then attended Michigan State Normal for two years before signing a minor league baseball contract. An arm injury sent him back to Jackson to coach and play baseball in the city’s recreational Twilight Leagues. Switching to the infield, he was remembered as one of Jackson’s all-time finest.
Previous "Century of School Sports" Spotlights
March 5: Everything We Do Begins with Participation - Read
Feb. 25: Slogans & Logos Remain Unforgettable Parts of MHSAA History - Read
Feb. 19: MHSAA Tickets Continue to Provide Fan-Friendly Value - Read
Feb. 11: We Recognize Those Who Make Our Games Go - Read
Feb. 4: WISL Conference Continues to Inspire Aspiring Leaders - Read
Jan. 28: Michigan's National Impact Begins at NFHS' Start - Read
Jan. 21: Awards Celebrate Well-Rounded Educational Experience - Read
Jan. 14: Predecessors Laid Foundation for MHSAA's Formation - Read
Jan. 9: MHSAA Blazes Trail Into Cyberspace - Read
Dec. 31: State's Storytellers Share Winter Memories - Read
Dec. 17: MHSAA Over Time - Read
Dec. 10: On This Day, December 13, We Will Celebrate - Read
Dec. 3: MHSAA Work Guided by Representative Council - Read
Nov. 26: Finals Provide Future Pros Early Ford Field Glory - Read
Nov. 19: Connection at Heart of Coaches Advancement Program - Read
Nov. 12: Good Sports are Winners Then, Now & Always - Read
Nov. 5: MHSAA's Home Sweet Home - Read
Oct. 29: MHSAA Summits Draw Thousands to Promote Sportsmanship - Read
Oct. 23: Cross Country Finals Among MHSAA's Longest Running - Read
Oct. 15: State's Storytellers Share Fall Memories - Read
Oct. 8: Guided by 4 S's of Educational Athletics - Read
Oct. 1: Michigan Sends 10 to National Hall of Fame - Read
Sept. 25: MHSAA Record Books Filled with 1000s of Achievements - Read
Sept. 18: Why Does the MHSAA Have These Rules? - Read
Sept. 10: Special Medals, Patches to Commemorate Special Year - Read
Sept. 4: Fall to Finish with 50th Football Championships - Read
Aug. 28: Let the Celebration Begin - Read
PHOTOS (Top) At top, the 1925 Sturgis boys basketball team. Bottom left: Detroit Southeastern. Bottom right: Jackson St. Mary's. (Middle) A newspaper clipping announces 1925 championship games will be broadcast. (Below) This set of portraits celebrates the 1925 Southeastern team and its accomplishments. (Photos courtesy of Detroit Southeastern High School and MHSAA archives.)