Beecher Seniors Lead 3-Peat Attempt
March 23, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – The day after Flint Beecher won the Class C boys basketball championship in 2013, coach Mike Williams went to watch an eighth-grade game.
He saw Levane Blake get a steal and a dunk, Malik Ellison pull up for a 3-pointer. “I just remember seeing the chemistry between them,” Williams said. “And I thought to myself, I think we’ll be going back down to Lansing a few more times.”
Now seniors, Blake, Ellison and Jordan Roland have a chance to finish their Beecher careers among the most successful players in the program’s storied history.
The Bucs have won seven MHSAA titles, and those three captains have been part of two straight – and earned an opportunity to three-peat with a 76-68 victory over Detroit Edison Public School Academy in Thursday’s first Semifinal at the Breslin Center.
“We feel more poised this year. It’s our senior year, and we want to go out with a bang,” Roland said.
“It’s our senior year, and I won’t be able to wear this jersey anymore,” Blake added, “or play on the court with my team, or lead the young guys. So we work every day in practice, go hard, hard, hard, and Coach Mike pushes us.”
Beecher (22-5) will play Grand Rapids Covenant Christian in Saturday’s 4:30 p.m. Final. The Bucs not only have won the last two Class C titles, but four of the last five.
After watching these seniors star as eighth graders that day in 2013, Williams knew they’d be on varsity as freshmen. Ellison, Roland and Blake all joined the varsity that next winter; Ellison and Blake started as sophomores in the 2015 championship win, and all three started in last year’s title game.
Ellison scored a game-high 28 points and added seven rebounds and seven assists Thursday, while Roland and Blake both scored 10 points, Roland also grabbing seven rebounds and the 6-foot-7 Blake blocking six shots.
Edison (14-12), in its first Semifinal after winning its first Regional title last week, fought back-and-forth for the lead through the first five minutes of the second quarter until Beecher took a one-point lead on a Roland bucket with 3:17 to go in the first half, and never gave up the advantage again.
“We know Malik is a tough little guard, and I think the thing you never can put a hand on is a guy coming up here playing in three state championships games,” DEPSA coach Brandon Neely said. “I think the advantage he had is he just understood how the game would go. … You know that those guys are never going to get rattled. They’ve been in so many wars that when they come to battle, they’re just loose; it’s just another game for them."
Senior guard Jamal Keesee led the Pioneers with 21 points and 12 rebounds, while junior center Deante Johnson had 17 points and nine rebounds. Junior guard Gary Solomon added 15 points, six rebounds and four assists, and junior guard Pierre Mitchell, Jr., had 10 points and also six rebounds and four assists.
Beecher freshman guard Jalen Terry had 15 points as his team’s second-leading scorer, something that spoke to what Williams has emphasized to his successful seniors this winter. He put it on them to play major roles in bringing along the next generation, to work at both continuing the Bucs’ legacy and setting it up for the future as well, just as others did to assist them at the start of their careers.
“I’m just going to go out there and play hard for them,” Terry said. “They gave me everything they’ve got. I’m going to give them everything I’ve got.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Flint Beecher’s Malik Ellison drives hard to the basket during Thursday’s first Class C Semifinal. (Middle) The Bucs score two more on the way to earning their third straight championship game berth.
All-Time Leading Scorer Allen Ready to Set Pace for Wayne Memorial's Title Pursuit
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
February 20, 2026
WAYNE — Jaylohn Allen insisted making such history wasn’t one of his goals when he started his varsity basketball career as a freshman.
Given that, it made the moment all the more special last week.
During a game against Harvey Thornton (Ill.) on Valentine’s Day, Allen and the Wayne Memorial community loved seeing a 30-year-old record broken by Allen, who became the boys basketball program’s all-time leading scorer.
Allen surpassed the 1,748 career points scored by former Michigan State player Lorenzo Guess, who finished his career in 1996.
“To be the all-time leading scorer at Wayne Memorial High actually wasn’t one of my goals coming in as a freshman,” Allen said. “And honestly I didn’t really think I was going to pass it because 1,700 points is a lot of points, per se. To do that as a kid who grew up with many accomplishments and dreams I wanted to have was a joy. I thought 1,000 points was surreal, but the record meant so much more.”
Signed to play in college for Toledo, Allen certainly has meant a lot to Wayne Memorial over the past four years, and he hopes to make even more history for the Zebras over the next few weeks.
Allen is averaging nearly 23 points a game this season and is determined to try and get Wayne Memorial back to the Division 1 championship game, where it loss last year to East Lansing.
When the Zebras accepted the Finals runner-up trophy, they obviously had immediate reason for optimism given Allen and fellow backcourt mate Carlos Medlock – a Michigan State signee – were only juniors.
But Medlock threw a major wrinkle into Wayne Memorial’s title ambitions when he decided over the offseason to transfer to a prep school in Missouri.
“I found out maybe a week before he posted on social media,” Allen said of Medlock’s decision. “There were rumors about it, but I didn’t really think he was going to leave. It was a shock, but I was still ready to attack the senior season regardless of what happened and look forward to the senior season with or without him.”
Allen has certainly done that and more.
Instead of pouting or looking to leave himself, Allen treated Medlock’s departure as a chance to prove he was a worthy Mr. Basketball Award candidate this winter.
Over the summer, he worked to get in terrific shape and continued to not only hone his on-court talents, but became an even more vocal leader to younger players coming back.
“It put me into a bigger role and let people see I can score the ball even more than I’ve been doing the past three years,” Allen said. “It put a fire in me and some motivation that I could be more of the man with the ball.”
One person not surprised that Allen adapted so well without Medlock was Wayne Memorial head coach Steve Brooks.
“He’s pretty much always been the man; he just hadn’t been the leading scorer all the time,” Brooks said.
Allen said there were adjustments playing without his running mate of the last three years, especially when trying to get out in transition.
“Being on the floor and not seeing (Medlock) on the other side of the court and being able to swing it to him — it was just a connection in transition or any other core set that we had,” Allen said. “(The adjustments were) just realizing he’s not on the court and having to utilize my other teammates and making sure they are getting everything they need.”
There was a major scare in December, just before the holiday break, when Allen left a game with a knee injury after he took a charge.
“We thought he was lost for the year,” Brooks said.
But the injury was only a bone bruise, and Allen missed just 13 days and has been an unstoppable force since.
To Brooks, it’s obvious who should be Mr. Basketball.
“Mr. Basketball traditionally is for what you’ve done for your career and not just for a season,” Brooks said. “Over his career, he’s at 19 points a game. Him and Medlock both had 1,000 career points before Christmas of their junior year.”
While Mr. Basketball would be nice and the scoring record is an honor, there is one main purpose for Allen, and that is to get another shot at the Division 1 title that eluded Wayne Memorial last year.
The Zebras enter tonight’s Kensington Lakes Activities Association championship game 18-3 and carrying a 10-game winning streak.
“I want them to get there more than me,” Allen said of his teammates. “I want them to show me how much they want to be there so when it comes down to it, we’re ready for it.”
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Wayne Memorial’s Jaylohn Allen (5) makes his way through his teammates during introductions before last season’s Division 1 Final at Breslin Center. (Middle) Teammates help Allen up from the floor during the Zebras’ Semifinal win.