Consortium Proves To Be Best in Class C
March 22, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – Detroit Consortium’s boys basketball team fell in a 2011 Semifinal to eventual Class C champion Schoolcraft. A year later, the Cougars’ season ended with a two-point Regional Final loss to eventual title winner Flint Beecher.
Joshua Jackson was watching – but couldn’t help. He was still in junior high.
But the now-sophomore decided then that when he was old enough, he’d play a part in the Cougars' first MHSAA title.
Consortium entered this postseason ranked No. 2 in the final Class C poll. With the 6-foot-8 Jackson leading and surrounded by a talented a cast, the Cougars eliminated No. 1 Mount Clements and No. 3 Negaunee this week and finished with a 61-44 championship game win over No. 10 Pewamo-Westphalia on Saturday at the Breslin Center.
“Playing with most of the guys last year, I always had trust in them,” Jackson said. “I just had something to prove, and they wanted to win just like I did.
“To prove so many people wrong, I know maybe one person picked us to win (over Mount Clemens). I guess they thought overall their team was better than ours. (But) I think we’ve proved people wrong all year winning big games.”
Consortium beat some of the best in finishing 25-2 this winter.
The Cougars also defeated No. 5 Detriot Allen in their Regional Final, plus ranked Class A Saginaw Arthur Hill, Romulus and Detroit Southeastern, ranked Class B Detroit Country Day and Detroit Douglass, an MHSAA semifinalist in that class.
And that’s some of what coach Tobias Tuomi reminded his players when Consortium led Pewamo-Westphalia only 27-25 in the championship game.
“We just said to cherish the moment. I told them to appreciate all the work, and it is a heck of an opportunity just to be here,” Tuomi said. “But we didn’t come here to be here. We came to win a state championship. To do that, we’d have to do all the little things we do in practice, things that won us games all season.”
P-W (23-3) was doing them to keep pace during the first half and up until taking a 34-32 lead three minutes into the third quarter. Despite trailing by 11 at the end of the first period, the Pirates drew even heading into the final minute of the first half before senior guard Rudy Smith hit a go-ahead basket to give Consortium the two-point lead at the break.
But after senior Evan Fedewa’s 3-pointer gave the Pirates that third-quarter advantage, Consortium outscored them 19-3 to take a 51-37 lead with 6:50 to play.
Consortium’s defense tightened and P-W’s shooting percentage fell – from 43 percent from the floor during the first half to 32 percent in the second. Meanwhile, the Cougars upped their offensive output, improving from 42 percent from the floor to 63 over the final two quarters. Senior guard Ronald Booth, in particular, scored 12 of his 14 points during the second half to finish as one of three Consortium players in double figures.
“We just dug down, got a little more focused,” Tuomi said. “Definitely, (P-W was) taking a lot tougher shots.”
Smith also finished with 14 points for Consortium. Jackson led with 22 points on 9 of 13 shooting – including hitting all three of his 3-point attempts, and also grabbed 13 rebounds.
“For the old guys like me, I saw Earvin Johnson play here at (Lansing) Everett, and I had season tickets when he was (at Michigan State). He’s a similar type of player to him,” P-W coach Luke Pohl said of Jackson. “Whether he’s going to become that kind of player is another story, but he’s really talented. He might be the most talented person our teams have played against. He can see the court real well, passes well … and he’s a really humble kid.”
Senior center Lane Simon scored a game-high 23 points and grabbed seven rebounds for P-W, and senior guard Nick Spitzley finished a four-year varsity career with 10 points and three assists.
They and nine seniors total brought the Pirates to their first championship game since 1993. Pohl – who graduated from P-W in 1976 and has coached over two tenures since 1995 – called this the best team in school history. It definitely highlighted the Pirates a little more prominently on the statewide basketball map.
“Obviously I wanted to achieve the state championship,” Simon said. “But it feels like we got a lot of respect back."
Consortium did make the Quarterfinals with Jackson last season, again falling by two to Beecher as the Buccaneers went on to repeat as champions. But that was impressive in itself – the Cougars continued on although coach Al Anderson died unexpectedly that February.
The run also set the stage for things to come.
“We wanted to sit and sob and cry about it, but at the end of the day we knew that what he wanted was for us to win a state championship more than anything,” Jackson said. “So we knew that was something that we had to do.”
Click for a full box score and video from the press conference.
PHOTOS: (Top) Detroit Consortium’s Rudy Smith pushes down the floor as Pewamo-Westphalia’s Nick Spitzley gives chase during the Class C Final. (Middle) The Pirates’ Lane Simon goes strong to the basket for two of his game-high 23 points.
HIGHLIGHTS: (1) Joshua Jackson follows a miss with a big dunk for Detroit Consortium in the fourth quarter of its Class C championship game against Pewamo-Westphalia. Jackson finished with 22 points and 13 rebounds in leading his team to the win. (2) Some nice passing by Pewamo-Westphalia sets up Evan Fedewa for a 3-pointer to give the Pirates a 34-32 lead in the third quarter against Detroit Consortium in the Class C title game.
Riverview Gabriel Richard Caps Repeat Trip with Historic Championship
By
Jeff Bleiler
Special for MHSAA.com
March 15, 2025
EAST LANSING — One year ago, Luke Westerdale sat in the locker room at the Breslin Center and repeated “I can’t believe this” over and over.
His Riverview Gabriel Richard boys basketball team had just lost in the MHSAA Semifinals on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer.
On Saturday, he was repeating the same phrase in the locker room – but for a far different reason.
Westerdale and the Pioneers made history by defeating Arts and Technology Academy of Pontiac 79-63 to claim the school’s first basketball state championship.
“I’m so happy, this is so awesome,” Westerdale said. “I used to think in my room late at night what it would feel like to win a state championship, and this is better than I ever could have imagined.”
The Pioneers (25-2) used a balanced attack with five players in double figures, led by Charles Kage and Bryce White with 18 points apiece. Westerdale followed with 17, Drew Everingham 16 and Nick Sobush finished with 10.
“Unselfish basketball wins championships,” Westerdale said.
All five scorers for the Pioneers are seniors and ended their high school careers with a title.
“I don’t know what to think right now,” Gabriel Richard coach Kris Daiek said. “I don’t think people understand what it takes to win. It takes a lot of people to win. I thought defensively we played very good. I’m ecstatic for these guys.”
Gabriel Richard led 12-11 after the first quarter before an 18-4 scoring burst in the second provided breathing room and a double-digit lead it would never relinquish.
The Lions hurt themselves by missing several close-range shots.
“We were just missing shots,” ATAP coach Orlando Lovejoy said. “We had a bunch of missed layups early on in the game. We counted four missed layups in the first quarter.”
Case in point came late in the first half with the Pioneers ahead 32-20. ATAP missed successive layups inside of 30 seconds to play, and instead of pulling within 10, the Lions gave up a late layup to Kage to trail 34-20 at the half.
ATAP finished the first half shooting 6-of-29 from the field, including 1-of-11 from 3-point range, and were outscored 22-9 in the second quarter.
The Pioneers stretched the lead to 23 in the third quarter before the Lions carved it to 11 points on a Lewis Lovejoy jumper with less than six minutes to play in the game. That’s when the turning point happened, according to coach Lovejoy. An ATAP player was called for a foul and tossed the ball in the air, which drew a technical foul.
White and Sobush both made two free throws, and on the ensuing possession, Sobush was fouled and made the free throws. The six-point possession proved costly.
“It kind of killed the momentum of the game,” Orlando Lovejoy said. “We tried to fight back after that, but they just closed the game out after that.”
What followed was a foul-fest as ATAP tried to come back. But the Pioneers made 24 of 29 free throws to keep the Lions at bay. An alley-oop from White to Everingham with a minute to go put an exclamation point on the game.
The Pioneers enjoyed an experience and size advantage. The Lions were 8-7 a year ago and 3-12 the year before, but freshman Lewis Lovejoy and seniors Teyshaun and Terrance Hicks proved a difficult trio to beat. Lovejoy finished the game with 21 points, and the Hickses had 10 apiece.
Kage had a few inches on just about every Lions player, as he and Everingham each had 11 rebounds.
“I knew I had the size advantage over them, so I knew I had to use that to my advantage,” Kage said. “For my last game of my high school career, I had to go out with a bang, and when I got the ball in the paint, I knew it was over from there when I touched it.”
PHOTOS (Top) Riverview Gabriel Richard’s Drew Everingham dunks during his team’s Division 3 championship win Saturday at Breslin Center. (Middle) The Pioneers’ Charles Kage (5) puts up a shot with ATAP’s Carter George defending. (Below) The Lions’ Lewis Lovejoy (0) shoots a jumper as Bryce White attempts to block it. (Photos by Adam Sheehan/Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)