Concord Finishes Strong to End Longest Playoff Run in 40 Years as 1st-Time Champ
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
March 14, 2026
EAST LANSING – As his teammate Connor Stevens strode to the free throw line to put the finishing touches on Concord’s 60-47 win over Detroit Douglass in the Division 4 Boys Basketball Final on Saturday, Brady Garrett pulled his jersey over his face.
The Yellowjackets senior shook his head, almost in disbelief before looking up to the massive Concord crowd assembled at the Breslin Center and screaming, “Let’s go!”
“First of all, I love basketball and I love the group of guys that I’m with,” Garrett said. “As time was winding down, it was hitting me. I’m a senior, this is it. This was everything I played for my whole life. To capture it with a state championship, it meant so much to me. I wouldn’t ask for a better group of guys to do it with.”
Garrett and his teammates brought Concord its first Finals title in boys basketball, finishing off the school’s first “final four” appearance since 1986.
“They’ve been waiting on it,” Stevens said. “All season they’ve been riding with us, and there’s no other way I’d want to go out than this. We all looked at each other and knew that’s what we had to do.”
Concord did it for its city and fans, as well as for Fred Garland, who had passed away in a car crash after leaving a Concord practice in December of 2024. Garland was a standout college basketball player who played for Concord coach Marcus Gill Sr. at Albion and was a former club coach of Stevens.
“We did this for Fred Garland,” Gill said. “(His death) rocked our heart and soul, and he wanted this bad. We did this for Fred.”
The Yellowjackets were able to channel all that emotion into an incredible fourth quarter, which broke open a game that was tied after three.
They outscored Douglass 19-6 in the fourth, holding the Hurricanes to 2-of-16 (12.5 percent) shooting from the field, while hitting 60 percent of their shots and not committing a turnover.
Much of that success hinged on a switch during the quarter to a zone defense, which caught Douglass off guard.
“We are primarily a man-to-man team, but we have our (3-2 zone) in,” Gill said. “We knew we wanted to save it a little bit for the second half today, because they’re a really good driving team, and we knew (Douglass guard Damani Oliver) can really shoot it, so we wanted to wait for the right time to try and get them out of their rhythm. We got into it, it was working and we were making stops, so we just stayed in it.”
Douglass coach Pierre Brooks Sr. credited that zone for slowing his team, but thought it was Concord’s senior-led roster that made the difference down the stretch.
“I think Concord’s experience kind of got the best of us in the second half,” Brooks said. “They’ve got seniors that were pretty hungry, and we just didn’t convert.”
The late push from Concord came despite not having star guard Jett Smith on the court for half of the fourth quarter, as he picked up his fourth foul during the final seconds of the third.
With him out, though, the Yellowjackets jumped ahead, leading by five when he re-entered the game with 4 minutes, 26 seconds to play.
“It was huge, but that’s why we’re a championship team, because we’ve got other guys,” Gill said. “Just like (in the Semifinal against Wyoming Tri-Unity Christian), they did a good job of taking (Smith) out of the game, but we’ve got a lot of good ball handlers. Yesterday it was Darrell (Dean) with the ball in his hands, today it was Brady Garrett. I thought he ran our team unbelievably.”
Smith still finished with 14 points, despite the foul trouble and hounding defense from Douglass junior Jacodi Nathan. Stevens led the Yellowjackets with 15 points and 19 rebounds, while Dean had 15 points. Garrett added six points, five assists and two steals.
Oliver led Douglass (21-8) with 15 points, while Nathan had 12, including a five-point stretch over the final seconds of the first half during which he hit a 3-pointer, stole the inbounds pass and laid the ball in, giving his team a 26-22 lead going into halftime.
“Today, we didn’t finish the first 16 minutes great, but we came out and battled and played Concord basketball the last 16 minutes,” Gill said. “And this is the outcome right here. Can’t be more proud of these guys.”
PHOTOS (Top) Concord boys basketball coach Marcus Gill Sr. holds up his team’s newly-won championship trophy Saturday at Breslin Center. (Middle) Douglass’ Jacodi Nathan (11) drives hard to the hoop with Concord’s Tyler Rundle working to wall him off. (Photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)
Pressure? No problem as Our Lady Advances
March 24, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – The bright lights have worn off for Waterford Our Lady’s seniors.
And that might have made all the difference over the final minutes of what could’ve been their final high school basketball game.
Andrew Kline and brothers Clay and Devin Senerius brought the Lakers to the Class D Semifinals a year ago for the first time since 1993, and they just missed a football championship losing by seven points in the Division 8 Final this fall.
So when the score of Thursday’s first Class D Semifinal sat tied for the seventh time with 5:49 to play, the Our Lady seniors weren’t phased by the building Breslin Center pressure.
The Lakers closed on a 15-3 run to finally break away from Wyoming Tri-unity Christian and earn their first MHSAA championship game appearance with a 64-53 victory.
“Playing on the big stage, it’s not as hard as it used to be,” said Devin Senerius, who led four Our Lady players with 17 points. “At the beginning of last year, at the Semifinals we were all nervous. And then at the state finals (for football), we were a little nervous. Now we all just wanted to win instead of lose.”
They’ve got a chance to win one more time, and for the first time in program history on the final day of the season, when they face Powers North Central at 10 a.m. in Saturday’s Class D Final.
The Lakers (22-4) were ranked No. 3 at the end of the regular season, so this run was hardly a surprise. But they also lost the final two games before the District began, putting the senior leaders in a position to pull their team back on track.
Our Lady responded by winning four of seven tournament games by at least 10 points.
“First off, it’s their personality. They want to win, and that’s vital,” Our Lady coach Paul Robak said. “It doesn’t matter if it is basketball, football, whatever; they want to win. That’s the most important part of the culture, teaching that not only to others in their class but the younger classes.
“We took a step backward toward the end of the year, and we got a little sloppy. But to their credit, we went back to being more competitive on the practice floor. And it starts with these three guys.”
Still, the final score Thursday was not indicative of how close the game stayed until the final six minutes.
To that point, neither team built a lead of more than six points. From 2:25 to play in the second quarter until 1:17 remained, neither team got ahead by more than four. There were 14 lead changes, seven in the third quarter and five during the fourth.
There would be only one run – and it would belong to Our Lady.
Kline scored nine of his 15 points during the final go-ahead drive, while Tri-unity Christian made only 1 of 9 shots from the floor during the final six minutes.
“Coach told us it’s crunch time,” Kline said. “We’ve got to buckle down. We knew we were the better team.”
Freshman Noah Robak added 12 points and Clay Senerius had 11 for Our Lady. Devin had 12 rebounds and Clay added 10 and six assists as the Lakers outrebounded the Defenders 37-15.
Senior guard Collin Rosendall led Tri-unity (20-6) with 17 points and four steals, and senior forward Javi Cuevas had 12 points and four assists.
Although the Defenders made a decent 44 percent of its shots from the floor, they connected on only 7 of 27 tries from 3-point range – struggling at what’s usually a strength.
“All year long we’ve done a good job of maintaining the bleeding on the boards,” Tri-unity coach Mark Keeler said. “Tonight we didn’t do a good job of that. They have good shooters and I think they knocked down key shots at the right time.
"They stayed in their zone, and I was happy they stayed in their zone because our 3-point shooting is normally good. But it failed us at the end.”
The Boys Basketball Finals are presented by Sparrow Health System.
PHOTOS: (Top) Our Lady’s Clay Senerius looks for an opening while Tri-unity’s Javi Cuevas defends. (Middle) The Defenders’ Collin Rosendall works to get past a Lakers player during the Class D Semifinal.