Ford Arrives in 1st MHSAA Title Game
March 27, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – Kenneth Flowers has been reminded more than a few times this week what he stepped into when he took over the Detroit Henry Ford boys basketball program eight seasons ago.
Congratulatory e-mails. Phone calls. Contacts from Henry Ford alumni dating back to the class of 1971.
“The community is huge over there,” Flowers said. “It’s amazing how basketball brings a community together like this.”
Imagine if he leads the Trojans to their first MHSAA championship Saturday.
They earned that opportunity, winning the first Semifinal in program history Friday, 64-38 over Cadillac at Michigan State University’s Breslin Center.
Prior to this season, Henry Ford had played in a Quarterfinal only once before, in 1984. But it will take on Wyoming Godwin Heights at 6:30 Saturday night to decide this season’s Class B champion.
“Our school, it’s the first time in history coming into the Breslin. And making this deep run, I just want to keep it going,” Ford senior guard Joshua Davis said. “Especially this being my last year, I’m very excited, very anxious, ready to make history.”
Flowers played his high school basketball at Detroit Redford and later led the junior varsity under coach Derrick McDowell – who has Detroit Western International playing for its first MHSAA championship as well, in the Class A Final.
Flowers took over for McDowell at Redford for the 2005-06 season and stayed until the school closed during the summer of 2007. Flowers started at Ford that fall.
The Trojans have posted winning records six of eight seasons under him – with the two sub-.500 records coming the last two seasons. But they rebounded this winter and finished second in the Detroit Public School League West Division 1 behind only Western.
Ford seemed to play with the jitters many first-time visitors to Breslin Center experience. It fell behind by five halfway through the first quarter to Cadillac, which played in a Semifinal for the third straight season.
But the Trojans (21-5) got the score back to even at 11-11 by the end of the quarter – and put the game nearly out of reach over the next eight minutes with a 23-6 run.
Junior point guard James Towns got comfortable quickly on the collegiate floor, making 9 of 12 shots and all six of his free-throw attempts for 24 points to go with four assists and three steals. Davis added 17 points and senior guard Antaun Carter added 10 and four steals.
Senior guard Andrew Emington led Cadillac with 14 points, and senior forward Ethan Myers had 13. To its credit, their team came back from a 5-6 start this winter and despite graduating its leading scorer from a year ago. The Vikings finished 18-9 and went a combined 58-21 over the three-season run.
“I told our guys in the locker room that were getting emotional, you can cry for the finality of the season, but don’t cry for the outcome of the game,” Cadillac coach Ryan Benzenberg said. “Because all we ever wanted, when this thing ended, was to lose to a team better than us. And I have no shame saying that Henry Ford is a better basketball team than we were tonight.”
Click for the full box score and video from the postgame press conference.
PHOTOS: (Top) Henry Ford players including freshman Da’Mon Gilmore (15) celebrate their first Semifinal win as they leave the floor Friday night. (Middle) Ford’s Joshua Davis finishes a dunk.
P-W Withstands Lovejoy's Record-Approaching Performance to Complete Historic Run
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
March 14, 2026
EAST LANSING – Pewamo-Westphalia overcame one of the best scoring performances in Finals history Saturday to claim the Division 3 boys basketball title.
Arts & Technology Academy of Pontiac got 41 points from sophomore Lewis Lovejoy, but the Pirates made enough stops during the biggest moments to come away with a 61-57 win at the Breslin Center.
“That game was exactly as we expected, just a great game between two great basketball teams,” P-W coach Dominic Schneider said. “What can you say about Mr. Lovejoy? I mean, that guy, he’s a stud at all three levels. But, I will say our guys did the job and became state champions because they believed in each other and believed in what we do as a program. That was a perfect example of team ball out there. I’m so proud of our guys.”
It was the second title in program history and first since 2019 for the Pirates, who were making their second-straight appearance at Finals weekend.
The senior class that brought them back included four starters – Nolan George, Tyler Spitzley, Trent Piggott and Grady Eklund, as well as sixth man Ty Thelen.
“They never once wavered and never once batted an eye,” Schneider said. “Sometimes you bring up freshmen or sophomores and things don’t go well, but it never was an issue. They took the sophomores under their wing, and obviously they helped us today. The senior class stayed together. Yeah, you have some great players but you have some players who don’t play as many minutes, and it never was an issue. They always wanted to be leaders and they wanted to win, and they did that in the best way possible.”
Eklund led the way in his final game at P-W, scoring 26 points while adding nine rebounds and four assists. Piggott had a double-double with 11 points and 12 rebounds, and sophomore Logan Farmer added 14 points.
The balance was in contrast to ATAP, which ran through Lovejoy, and for good reason – it was working.
Lovejoy’s 41 points were the seventh most in MHSAA Finals history. He shot 50 percent (14 of 28) from the field, and hit six 3-pointers, one away from tying the Finals record.
But the performance was no consolation following a second-straight loss in the Division 3 Final.
“It don’t mean nothing; we lost,” Lovejoy said. “If we won, I’d be on top of the world, but we lost. None of this matters. Not one point matters.”
Devonte Grandison added seven points and seven rebounds for the Lions, while Jaiden Price also had seven points.
Lovejoy had 35 through three quarters, as the Lions took a one-point lead into the fourth. But with Farmer switching onto the assignment, things slowed down for Lovejoy.
“I will say, once we switched Logan onto him – and Ty Thelen and Logan George did a heck of a job, that’s quite a task to take on – but I think throwing a different look at him helped a lot,” Schneider said. “Logan’s length and giving him a third defender that he had to go against, that helped a lot with that. I know how bull-headed this kid can be, and I know he wasn’t going to back down from a big challenge.”
Schneider was right, as Farmer was ready to take on the task.
“I saw he had 35, and I tried to keep him at 35,” Farmer said. “It didn’t work. He stops so quick and he has that back-up game, so he’s always keeping you on your toes. So it’s hard to stay with him. But when he raised up, I just tried to contest the best I could.”
Farmer also hit the game-sealing free throws with nine seconds remaining and was nearby when ATAP’s final 3-point attempt missed.
Lovejoy’s shooting kept ATAP in the game in the first half, as he scored 18 points over the opening 16 minutes. He was 4-of-7 from 3-point range in the second quarter, scoring 14 of his team’s 16 points in the frame.
The Lions were just 4-of-13 from behind the arc in the first half and 8-of-29 from the field overall.
That, and a 6-2 edge in turnovers forced, offset a hot-shooting start from the Pirates, who had hit 10 of their first 18 shots, including better than 64 percent of their 2-pointers. They held an 18-4 advantage in points in the paint.
Lovejoy’s heroics won over the Hudsonville Unity Christian students who had started filling in for their school’s Division 2 Final.
“You’re him, zero!” they yelled, eventually coming all the way over to the ATAP side and starting a “Let’s go Lions” chant.
But in the end, it was the Pirates student section making the most noise.
“The bottom line is the better team won,” ATAP acting coach Zachary Kelso said. “They made stops and they made plays when they needed to, and we didn’t. That’s the bottom line.”
PHOTOS (Top) Pewamo-Westphalia’s Logan Farmer gets up a shot over ATAP’s Lewis Lovejoy (0) on Saturday. (Middle) Lovejoy finishes a fastbreak with a layup. (Photos by Adam Sheehan/Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)