Class A: GPS Points to Finals
March 16, 2012
EAST LANSING – This month has been filled with firsts for Grosse Pointe South – first Regional Title, first Quarterfinal win, first Semifinal appearance.
On Saturday, the Blue Devils can cap their historical run with a first-ever MHSAA girls basketball championship.
They didn’t secure that opportunity until junior Claire DeBoer grabbed the game’s final rebound with three seconds to play in Friday's Semifinal. But she knocked down two free throws, and Grosse Pointe South outlasted Ann Arbor Huron to win 44-41.
“I was so excited when they fouled me, because I felt like I could knock the shots down,” DeBoer said. “And I was really excited when both of them went through and there were four seconds left.
“It just felt amazing.”
Grosse Pointe South (23-3), an honorable mention in the final Associated Press Class poll, will take on top-ranked Grand Haven (26-1) at noon Saturday. Both are playing for their first MHSAA championship.
But first, the Devils had to survive the most even game of this weekend so far. Both teams shot 35.7 percent from the floor. Both scored 20 points in the post. Huron had a few more assists, as South had a tough time holding onto the ball at times. South had a few more steals, as Huron had a tough time engaging its press because of its struggles offensively. Both teams had only one scorer in double figures.
And both had a chance until the end.
Grosse Pointe South led for the final 16 minutes, but by only a point after Huron freshman Ariel Bethea’s basket with 32 seconds to play. The teams traded possessions until Huron launched a 3-pointer with three seconds remaining. It looked good from the release, maybe to go in off the glass. But it missed, and DeBoer came down with the rebound and was fouled.
“Our game plan was to pressure them and wear them down. I think for the most part it worked,” Huron coach Steve Vinson said. “We just dug ourselves too deep of a hole, and could never get back up.”
Huron junior guard Bianca Williams led her team with 14 points and four steals. Senior center Logan Sims had nine points and six rebounds.
The Devils have no one to match the height of Grand Haven’t 6-foot-5 center Abby Cole – DeBoer is the team’s tallest player at 6-1. But she’s formidable in the post as well – she had game highs of 16 points and 14 rebounds Friday. And Grosse Pointe South is plenty confident it can utilize a few more strengths, including abilities to run the floor and apply defensive pressure.
“They’ve got a big team, they’re the number one team in the state, and they were expected to be here. We’re the so-called Cinderella,” Grosse Pointe South coach Kevin Richards said. “But I do like some of our matchups.
“We're excited, but we're definitely not settling for a runner-up.”
Click for the box score. Watch the game and both teams' postgame press conferences at MHSAA.tv.
PHOTO: Grosse Pointe South senior guard Caitlin Moore pulls up for a shot Friday. She finished with six points, four rebounds and four steals. (Photo courtesy of Terry McNamara Photography.)
Marian Finishes Familiar Foe to Advance
March 14, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – As all-girls schools located 7.2 miles apart in the Detroit suburbs, Bloomfield Hills Marian and Farmington Hills Mercy have plenty in common.
And then there’s the basketball rivalry they took up a level this winter.
They had a combined tie score of 149-149 over their first three games entering Friday’s Class A Semifinal at the Breslin Center. They split regular-season meetings, and hence, the Detroit Catholic League Central championship. Mercy won their third matchup, in the Catholic League Tournament final, but by just a point. The Marlins were ranked No. 3 at the end of the regular season, and the Mustangs were No. 5.
Those similarities are easy to point out. But it might’ve been even easier to measure how badly Marian wanted to move on to Saturday’s championship game while simultaneously ending its rival’s season.
“After that loss … we just picked each other up. From that moment on, every sprint we ran was to get back at Mercy,” Marian senior forward Laura Bruton said. “We knew we were going to meet them later on, in this game, and it just means everything. It’s been our dream to get here too, but just beating Mercy here is so much more important to us as a team than basically being here, in my opinion.”
Marian (24-2) will be in East Lansing one more day and with one more celebration in mind, thanks to a 67-55 defeat of Mercy in their fourth and final meeting of 2013-14. The Mustangs will face Canton in the noon Saturday Final.
As closely as Marian and Mercy had played each other this season – and with many of these same players over the last few – there wasn’t much left to surprise.
And that meant the Mustangs were plenty prepared for the multiple Mercy press defenses that had slowed them down, especially in their most recent meeting.
That also allowed Marian coach Mary Cicerone to predict to her team a 15-point win Friday if it found a way to break the Marlins’ pressure.
Close enough.
“We kept saying, ‘Here is comes,’ and it came,” Cicerone said. “We panicked a little bit, somebody traveled, somebody threw the ball away. We took a timeout and got organized. Mercy made runs; we made our runs back.”
Marian did lead the final 26 minutes of the game – although that and the final score were not good indicators of the closeness of the game until the Mustangs took control for good with a 13-4 final run beginning midway through the fourth quarter.
And it certainly hurt Mercy’s effort when senior starting guard Allie Grocyca left with an injury after playing only 11 minutes, and senior Candice Leatherwood was slowed by a knee injury as well.
“I said to the kids, we got behind early and it seemed like we were trying to dig ourselves out of the hole, climb back over the mountain,” Mercy coach Gary Morris said. “Every time we’d get close, something else would happen.”
Junior guard Kara Holinski scored a game-high 20 points to go with five rebounds and four assists for Marian. Junior forward Brittany Gray added 14 points and nine rebounds, and freshman guard Samantha Thomas scored 13 points.
Junior guard Taylor Jones scored 15 points to lead Mercy (25-2), and Leatherwood scored 14 including the 1,000th of her four-year varsity career. Senior Tyler Parlor came off the bench with eight points and 11 rebounds
“I told my assistants I thought I’d be retired before we ever got back here,” said Cicerone, who has totaled 559 wins over 31 seasons and last led the Mustangs to an MHSAA title in 1998. “But this junior group came in, and you just can’t boot them out of the gym. … They just work and work and work. We knew we had something.”
“We’ve been definitely looking forward to this game for a long time,” Holinski added. “Not in our wildest dreams did we think we’d be able to play Mercy again after the Catholic League loss. Coming into (this) game, we were so focused, so determined to beat them. We love each other so much, and we wanted to do it for each other.”
Click for a full box score.
PHOTOS: (Top) Marian guard Samantha Thomas works to get by Mercy’s Candice Leatherwood on Friday. (Middle) Marian’s Laura Bruton brings the ball upcourt surrounded by teammates and Mercy’s Taylor Jones.
HIGHLIGHTS: (1) Mercy tightens things up against Marian in the third quarter when Sierra LaGrande cans a 3-pointer and Taylor Jones follows with a steal and a layup. (2) Kara Holinski scores on a putback after Marian beats Mercy's pressure to start a 9-3 run midway through the third quarter.