After Lead Fades, Concord Stays Together to Stop Reigning Champ Tri-Unity in OT
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
March 12, 2026
EAST LANSING — Dethroning a champion is never easy, a fact Concord found out first-hand against Wyoming Tri-unity Christian in a Division 4 Semifinal on Thursday.
Concord jumped out to a big halftime lead and remained ahead by nine points late in the fourth quarter, but were stunned when Tri-unity Christian junior Cody Osbun forced overtime with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer during the final second of regulation at Breslin Center.
But in a credit to its resolve, Concord refocused and ended Tri-unity’s pursuit of a third-straight title, ending the game on an 11-0 run to earn a thrilling 50-40 overtime victory.
Concord (24-4) advanced to meet Detroit Douglass in the Division 4 Final at 10 a.m. Saturday in what will be its first championship game appearance.
“That was one of the hardest games we’ve ever had to play,” Concord head coach Marcus Gill said. “Hats off to them. That is a great team and a great program, perennial power. They are here every year. We just wanted to come out and be us.”
After Concord senior Jett Smith split a pair of free throws with 4.2 seconds left in regulation to give the Yellowjackets a 38-35 lead, Tri-unity (25-2) put the ball in the hands of Osbun, who drained a 3-pointer from the top of the key as time expired to tie the game at 38-38 and force overtime.
“That was actually a botched play,” Osbun said. “We had a different play where I was supposed to get the ball at half (court), which I did, but we were supposed to have someone running down far and I was supposed to pitch it up to him. But they were face-guarding them. So I just turned and subconsciously threw up a shot, and it just happened to go in.”
Tri-unity Christian then took its first and only lead of the game at 40-39 with 2:29 remaining in overtime on a basket by senior Nolan DeMots.
From there, Concord took over.
Senior Connor Stevens hit a layup with 1:54 remaining to give Concord a 41-40 lead, and then freshman Zack Stevens made two free throws with 1:33 left push the margin to three.
Two more free throws by Connor Stevens with 1:00 remaining made it 45-40 Concord. Following a couple of stops, Concord then took a 48-40 lead with 18 seconds to go on two free throws by Smith.
“I couldn’t be prouder of a group of guys for standing together,” Gill said. “Some guys are not together after having that meltdown in the second half. There’s no way a team that’s not together would have won that overtime. So proud of these guys for staying together and being who we are all year.”
Stevens had 16 points and 10 rebounds and Smith added 13 points for Concord, which came out attacking and aggressive, taking an 18-5 lead after the first quarter and going up 29-13 by halftime.
Concord held a 37-28 lead late in the fourth quarter, but Tri-unity Christian cut its deficit to 37-35 with 48.2 seconds remaining in the game on a 3-pointer by senior Clayton Rowlader, a layup by junior Jake VanKlompenberg and a putback basket by Osbun.
Osbun had 16 points and 11 rebounds to lead Tri-unity.
“Obviously we would have liked to have gotten off to a better start,” said Tri-unity first-year head coach Brent Voorhees, who took over this year after the retirement of longtime coach Mark Keeler. “But the kids you saw in that second half, that’s who we are. That’s Tri-unity basketball. That’s the guys that I coached all year.”
PHOTOS (Top) Concord players including Brady Garrett (4) celebrate during the Yellow Jackets’ Division 4 Semifinal win Thursday. (Middle) Darrell Dean Jr. (10) drives to the basket with Tri-unity’s Andrew Hofmann (24) defending. (Photos by Adam Sheehan/Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)
Edison Hangs On, Moves On to 1st Final
March 22, 2018
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – Detroit Edison saw its 16-point lead disappear by the middle of the fourth quarter of Thursday’s Class C Semifinal against Grand Rapids Covenant Christian.
The Pioneers weren’t worried.
“I wasn’t really concerned at all,” Edison senior guard Pierre Mitchell, Jr., said. “We’ve been through this the whole season. We play in the PSL. It’s a whole bunch of tough battles every Tuesday and Friday.
In fact, the Pioneers won the Detroit Public School League tournament this season. And that experience no doubt helped them earn the chance to play for their first MHSAA boys basketball championship.
Edison broke away over the final four minutes Thursday for a 55-43 win, launching a 14-1 game-ending run after the Chargers had come all the way back from the earlier double-digit deficit.
“I have seniors here, and these guys do a pretty good job of keeping guys focused on what we need to do and when we need to do it,” Edison coach Brandon Neely said. “I had confidence these guys were going to rise to the occasion.
“We were going to just maintain composure. We’ve been in a lot of tough battles this year, but we’re battle-tested. We’ve had teams come back on us before. We’ve lost some games that way. We’ve lost a game just about any way you could imagine. … (but) we always competed.”
Edison (16-10) will face Maple City Glen Lake in Saturday’s 4:30 p.m. championship game.
The Pioneers have won 10 of their last 11 games, which means they started 6-9 – and they finished fourth in their PSL division, which also included two Class A, a Class B and another Class C school.
But lessons learned from those defeats helped Edison weather Covenant Christian’s comeback and the momentum shift that could’ve come with it.
The Pioneers moved on with senior center Deante Johnson playing only 20 minutes because of foul trouble. They held on despite hitting only 35 percent of their shots for the game.
Instead of folding during Covenant’s comeback, Edison got help in the post from senior guard Gary Solomon, who finished with team highs of 15 points and 10 rebounds. And they climbed out of their cold shooting to make 5 of 11 tries from the perimeter during the fourth quarter, including 4 of 5 during the run to close out the game. Johnson came back to score the first five points of that final stretch.
“I work on (shooting) every day, and I had to come up big for my team,” Johnson said. “I was in foul trouble all throughout the game. I wasn’t the presence in the middle that I’d usually be. So I had to make it up somehow, some way in the fourth quarter for my team.”
As a team, Covenant Christian (22-5) shot a nearly identical 35 percent to the Pioneers, but made 9 of 13 attempts to knock down the 16-point deficit over the first 12 minutes of the second half.
But as the Pioneers closed on a roll, the Chargers finished making just 1 of 6 shots and turning the ball over twice.
“We knew we had to shoot it well today, and we didn’t in the first half and I thought that cost us,” Covenant Christian coach Tyler Schimmel said. “In the second half, we started playing Charger basketball.
“We changed a few things defensively (at halftime), but not many. For some reason, we were timid early on. We thought we were just as good as Edison, and they’re a good team. The shots just didn’t fall for us.”
Senior forward Carson Meulenberg led Covenant Christian with 12 points and 12 rebounds, and senior forward Trenton Koole also scored 12 points.
Mitchell added 13 points for Edison, and senior guard Keith Johnson was key off the bench with 10 points on 4 of 8 shooting over 14 minutes.
PHOTOS: (Top) Detroit Edison’s Keith Johnson puts up a jumper during Thursday’s Class C Semifinal against Grand Rapids Covenant Christian. (Middle) The Chargers’ Nathan Minderhoud drives the baseline with Johnson defending.