Country Day Will Play for 9th Title
March 22, 2013
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – Detroit Country Day coach Kurt Keener said he doesn’t get hung up on numbers, like the ninth MHSAA title his team could claim Saturday.
For this group of Yellowjackets, it would be the first. And that’s what counts most of all.
Country Day has come to Breslin Center and left without a championship the last two seasons. But for the first time since winning Class B in 2010, the Yellowjackets will play in the championship game – thanks to a 73-42 Semifinal win Friday over Cadillac.
“It would mean everything to me,” Country Day senior Austin Price said. “The last two years we came up here expecting to win and fell short. It would be great to end on a high note and win my last game as a high school basketball player.”
Top-ranked Country Day will face either Wyoming Godwin Heights or Detroit Community for the title at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.
In terms of Finals experience, few programs could sit on further ends of the spectrum.
While Country Day is a Breslin regular, Cadillac (21-5) made its first appearance in an MHSAA Semifinal.
Country Day’s last two Finals weekend visits ended with Semifinals losses to eventual champion
Lansing Sexton. But these Yellowjackets have a different look than some of their most recent teams, with a smaller lineup and a style Keener tells his players should be more track meet than golf match.
That speed became tough for Cadillac to handle immediately, as Country Day (24-3) jumped to a 22-10 lead by the end of the first quarter. The Vikings committed nine turnovers during the first eight minutes.
But they wouldn’t be run off. Cadillac pulled within 26-20 midway through the second quarter.
“At 26-20 we had the game where we wanted it,” Cadillac coach Jeff McDonald said. “We wanted it to be close and give ourselves a puncher’s chance.”
But they ran out of punches soon after, as Country Day went on a 14-2 run and never led by fewer than 10 points over the final 18 minutes.
Junior Edmond Sumner led the Yellowjackets with 30 points on 9 of 15 shooting, and also had six steals. Senior Mory Diane added 11 points.
Of Cadillac’s 26 turnovers, 21 were Country Day steals.
“Defensively, they don’t make mistakes. And obviously they like an uptempo game. They like to gamble on defense,” Vikings senior Nick Paquet said. “We like to slow it down, make it a halfcourt game. We allowed ourselves to play a little faster than we wanted to, and that hurt us.”
Paquet led Cadillac with 18 points and four steals. Junior Jalen Brooks added 15 points and a game-high seven rebounds.
PHOTOS: (Top) Detroit Country Day's Edmond Sumner pushes the ball upcourt Friday while Cadillac's Jalen Brooks (2) and Lewis Finch (15) give chase. (Middle) Brooks makes a strong move to the basket during the Semifinal. (Photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)
Fowler Earns Opportunity to Finish Season Same Way as Eagles Started
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
March 13, 2025
EAST LANSING — Fowler began the season Dec. 3 with an opening-night road win over reigning Division 4 champion Wyoming Tri-unity Christian.
On Saturday, the Eagles will end the season with a chance to officially dethrone the Defenders as champions.
Fowler did its part to set up the rematch during the second Division 4 Semifinal on Thursday, earning a 59-43 win over Allen Park Inter-City Baptist.
“We’re both completely different teams since that time, but I think we both know what we are going to get from each other,” Fowler head coach Kam Riley said of Tri-unity. “We knew there was a chance we could see them at the end of the year. We’re excited for the opportunity.”
The Eagles advanced to their first championship game since 2002 on the strength of 3-point shooting and rebounding.
Fowler didn’t shoot great from the field overall, connecting on 21 of 58 attempts. But nearly half of those made field goals were 3-pointers.
Fowler made 8 of its first 17 shots from 3-point range to build a 19-point lead during the second quarter and finished 10 of 27 from beyond the arc for the game, as seemingly everyone associated with Fowler was making them from deep – even a Fowler student dressed in an eagle costume hit a half-court shot during a contest before the fourth quarter started.
Seniors Asher Koenigsknecht and Aaron Simon both scored 15 points, and senior Jacob Halfmann had 14 for Fowler (25-3).
The Eagles also controlled the boards, holding a 44-32 rebounding advantage with 15 offensive rebounds.
Senior Alex Halfmann and junior Joe Epkey both had 10 rebounds for Fowler.
“We anticipated it could be hard to shoot in a gym like this,” Riley said. “We don’t play here a lot. We knew we had a size advantage. Just an incredible effort by our guys crashing the glass.
Fowler held a 36-17 lead with 3:08 remaining in the first half and extended the margin to 38-22 by halftime, never letting Inter-City Baptist pull closer than 14 points the rest of the game.
Fowler committed only one turnover in the first half and seven for the game against an Inter-City Baptist team that had an experience advantage given it played in the Semifinals at Breslin Center last year.
“We just told each other that it was another game,” Koenigsknecht said. “Don’t make the court put any more pressure on you. Just do your thing like we have all season.”
Inter-City Baptist (24-5) was led by junior Ethan Esse, who scored a game-high 25 points. The silver lining for the Chargers is that they should be well-equipped for another run next year with just one senior on the roster.
But that didn’t make a second-straight Semifinal loss hurt any less.
“We were a team that was averaging 23 assists to nine turnovers a game,” said Inter-City Baptist head coach Mark Kraatz, whose team had nine assists Thursday. “It just wasn’t the way we’ve been playing. We didn’t share it. We didn’t get the assists that I thought. Rebounding, assists and then they shot it well. They played well.”
PHOTOS (Top) Fowler's Asher Koenigsknecht (3) gets up a 3-point shot as Inter-City Baptist's Ethan Esse (22) attempts to get a hand on the ball Thursday. (Middle) Inter-City Baptist's Carlos Jackson (11) considers his options with Fowler's Joe Epkey defending.