Southfield Christian Claims 3-Peat in D
March 22, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – First one and then a second starter fouled out of Saturday’s Class D Final as Southfield Christian tried to catch Adrian Lenawee Christian with only a few minutes remaining.
Fortunately for the Eagles, they had a few more players left with experience finishing a championship run.
Southfield Christian had never during the last three seasons played from situation it faced early Saturday afternoon. But a number of its players had helped win one or both of two straight MHSAA championships – and that no doubt assisted those left on the floor as they claimed a third.
Junior guard Bakari Evelyn scored five of his game-high 28 points after teammates Lindsay Hunter IV and Damarco White fouled out in the fourth quarter, and 2013 championship game standout Marlo Brown also scored during the same stretch as Southfield Christian claimed its third straight MHSAA title with a 63-61 nail-biter over Adrian Lenawee Christian.
“It was tough once I saw we were losing Lin and Damarco for a few quarters. My whole objective was to keep the game as close as possible,” Evelyn said. “I thought we were going to come out with the win, through the whole game and everything. It was good to finally be right.”
Evelyn, who started last season’s Class D Final and came off the bench in 2012 as a freshman, also had seven rebounds, four assists and four steals and handled the ball almost exclusively after Hunter fouled out with 16 points, 3:47 left to play and the Eagles trailing 54-51.
The 6-foot-6 White fouled out just more than a minute later with only two points, but five rebounds and five blocked shots after spending most of his morning defending Lenawee Christian’s trio of 6-7 post players.
But Evelyn had plenty of help down the stretch. Sophomore guard Jalen Bouldes played only 38 seconds during the closing minutes, but scored, was fouled and made the ensuing free throw to give Southfield Christian a 56-55 lead with 3:09 to play. Brown scored a minute later to push the lead to three. Evelyn then made five of six free-throw attempts over the final 1:13 to keep Lenawee Christian just a few points short.
“We’ve never had this where all of our main guys were in foul trouble. Other guys like Harding (Fears) and Benny (Cookinham) had to step up,” Eagles coach Clennie Brundidge said. "I’d put (Hunter and White) back in here and they’d get another foul. I told them that at the end, our depth was going to win this.”
Fears grabbed eight rebounds in 12 minutes and junior guard Kameron Garner – a starter last season who this winter came off the bench – had five points and five rebounds despite taking a hard fall during the first half. Brown had only four points, but both baskets put Southfield Christian up at points in the game.
Lenawee Christian (21-5), an honorable mention in the Class D poll heading into the postseason, came back from an early nine-point deficit to make it back-and-forth over the final three quarters.
Senior center Kingsley had 22 points on 7 of 11 shooting from the floor and with sophomore forward Maxwell (11 points) allowed the Cougars to slow the game’s tempo and keep Southfield Christian’s usually active fastbreak to only 11 points.
“We wanted them to come beat us at our game, and I think for the most part we were able to control tempo,” Lenawee Christian coach Scott McKelvey said. “Our free-throw shooting hurt us (19 of 31), but we got opportunities and we couldn’t ask for anything more than that. It’s a team that probably no one in the state thought we could beat.”
“If we could’ve had two more minutes,” Kingsley added, "I’m pretty confident we could’ve changed something.”
Senior forward Grant Hohlbein, also set to accept an MHSAA Scholar-Athlete Award later Saturday, added 15 points for Lenawee Christian. The Cougars’ Semifinal on Thursday was its first since 2001, and the championship game berth was their first ever.
Brundidge said that after seeing Lenawee Christian in a summer game, he knew that was the team his Eagles would face if they returned for a third straight Final. Southfield Christian’s only loss this season was to Class A No. 5 Saginaw Arthur Hill, and it finished 26-1 and 74-5 over the last three seasons – good to tie for eighth-most wins over a three-season span.
“I’m in awe,” Hunter said. “My freshman year we lost in the first round of Districts to (Bloomfield Hills) Roeper, went 2-19. I never thought we’d be sitting here in this position with three state championships.”
Click for the full box score and video from the press conference.
PHOTOS: (Top) Southfield Christian’s Bakari Evelyn (22) works to get to the rim around Adrian Lenawee Christian’s Maxwell and Grant Hohlbein. (Middle) Lenawee Christian’s Nick Mewborn dribbles upcourt with Southfield Christian’s Kameron Garner defending.
HIGHLIGHTS: (1) Southfield Christian uses a block to start a fast break, resulting in a basket – and one – for Jalen Bouldes. The free throw gave the Eagles the lead to stay in the Class D finale. (2) With 12 seconds to go, Grant Hohlbein of Lenawee Christian scores on an inbounds pass and draws a Southfield Christian foul. Hohlbein completed the three-point play to pull his team within a point at 62-61.
Taratuta Tops Hillman's Leaderboard, Striving to Take Tigers on Title Pursuit
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
January 5, 2024
A lot of has been written about Hillman senior point guard Trenton Taratuta.
And Taratuta has re-written pretty much every basketball record in the Hillman history book as well.
He would trade everything, though, for a shot at the Breslin Center and playing in the Division 4 Boys Basketball Final.
Taratuta entered this season with 1,612 career points, leaving him only 68 away from the school scoring record.
“First things first, I am just a competitor – I want to win,” Taratuta said of his Breslin goal. “The personal accolades come along with it, but winning is everything.”
Eric Muszynski, the Tigers’ boys basketball coach for the past 19 years, guarantees his four-year starter and most decorated player in Hillman history would give up every one of his records for the chance to win at Breslin.
“The beauty of Trenton is I know he would sacrifice these individual accolades to get down to the Breslin Center,” Muszynski said. “It’s a real treat to coach him.
“You tell kids, ‘If you put the time in and hard work in, results happen,’” Muszynski continued. “It has been awesome to be able to use him as an example to a lot of our youth basketball players and some of our current players that have seen the work he’s put in and the results he is getting.”
Taratuta is the only starter returning from last year’s team that lost a 59-57 heart-breaker to Frankfort in the Quarterfinals. He did become the highest scorer in Hillman’s history during a 57-56 overtime win over Oscoda on Dec. 7. He set the mark within his team’s first bucket of the game and then won it with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer that allowed him to again tie the school record for the most points in a single game with 41.
The 6-foot-4 guard, who has scored 41 three times during his career, wants to ride the community support the entire 200-plus miles in March to Breslin. Last year’s run remains bigger to Taratuta than all his current individual records.
“My favorite memory so far is our postseason run last year,” he said. “The support we got from our community was overwhelming.
“It was fun to see everyone come support us and the crowds we got,” he continued. “It was a great atmosphere for all the playoff games.”
Hillman is off to a 6-2 start after winning its North Star League Little Dipper opener Thursday night over Posen, 72-51, as Taratuta led with 30 points. The Tigers’ only losses this winter have been to Division 2 schools, Gaylord and Ogemaw Heights.
Taratuta now has 1,858 points for his career and set his sights on reaching 2,000. His coach thinks it is highly likely he’ll be able to do that and then climb toward the total accrued by the leading scorer in Michigan high school history, Jay Smith, from 1975-76 through 1978-79.
That said, Taratuta, who is averaging more than 30 points per game this season, is unlikely to challenge Smith’s 2,841 career points – but both Taratuta and his coach also look to the record with pride as Mio is less than 40 miles down the road from Hillman.
Only 45 others in MHSAA boys hoops history have reached 2,000 career points.
“The 2,000-point mark would be pretty special,” Taratuta acknowledged. “It would be pretty cool.”
Hillman, which will host the District tournament this year, expects to ride Taratuta’s success a long way this postseason. Atlanta, Fairview, Hale, Mio and Posen are the Tigers’ potential District opponents.
“There is a lot of season left and a lot of work to be done,” Taratuta said. “I am looking forward to the rest of the season.
“I’m focused on the team’s overall success, not thinking about the points,” he continued. “Coming into this year, there were a lot of doubters and the guys have stepped up well.”
Senior center Blake Kennard is averaging 11.1 points per game and chipping in more than seven rebounds and almost three blocks. Junior 3-point specialist Brenden Rouleau is also averaging double-digit scoring.
Taratuta – who is from a family of high-scoring Hillman graduates – had his sights set on the career points record for quite a while. He was at the game in 2015 when Mason VanPamel broke Paul Bennett’s longstanding scoring record set in 1986.
“He comes from a pretty good pedigree of athletes,” Muszynski said. “His uncles Greg, Jeff and Tim Jones are all thousand-point scorers in our school, and they’re in our Hall of Fame.
Taratuta also just may be a one-of-a-kind, talented, hard-working team player, his veteran coach noted.
“Not only can he score it, he is top-five in our school’s history in every major statistical category going into his senior year,” Muszynski continued. “He is one of those guys where you’re not sure if you’re going to see somebody of that caliber again in your career.
“I was pretty fortunate to have a couple of other guys that were pretty solid, and it’s built the tradition of our basketball program to where Trenton is at.”
Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Hillman’s Trenton Taratuta (22) gets to the basket as the crowd anticipates two points. (Middle) Taratuta considers his next move during a game against Mio. (Photos courtesy of Jonny Zawacki.)