Divine Child Family Grows with New Season
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
December 11, 2015
DEARBORN – Last April, Dearborn Divine Child assistant girls basketball coach Julie Kaniewski received some news for which she was not prepared.
Kaniewski and head coach Mary Laney have been close friends most of their lives. They played basketball together at Divine Child, graduated the same year and played on two Class B championship teams (in 1993 and ’94). Kaniewski and Laney were putting a close on the season when Laney made a stunning announcement.
“We were working with the returning players,” Kaniewski said. “We were going over some stuff for the summer, and as we were ending things Mary said, ‘By the way, I’m pregnant.’ Being a math teacher, I put it all together. That put her due date near the start of the season. She said she’d be there for tryouts. I said, can you guarantee that?”
On Nov. 24, Laney gave birth to an 8-pound, 8-ounce boy, Owen Michael Laney. He’s the third child for Mary and her husband Chris Laney.
But Owen Michael was the first to be born during the basketball season. Their first child, Ellen, was born on Oct. 26, 2010, and their second, and first boy, Niall, was born Sept. 18, 2012.
The birth of Owen Michael added a little excitement for the Laneys on Thanksgiving, and a bit of consternation for Kaniewski.
“Some things are just out of my control,” Mary Laney said. “It made for a nice Thanksgiving. It was the best Thanksgiving ever. Things will be better when (Owen Michael) gets his days straightened out from his nights.”
Things are already better for Kaniewski. Her best friend is back on the bench and coaching. In fact – and to the relief of Kaniewski – Laney was back coaching Dec. 2, two days before the Falcons’ opener at Chelsea.
No question, it was stressful for both coaches. What helped alleviate some of the pressure is their friendship. There’s nothing Kaniewski wouldn’t do for Laney, and vice versa.
And laughter helped.
“I was a little nervous,” Kaniewski said. “I can joke with her. I told her you’ll be on epidural and I’ll be coaching.”
Their bond extends to their immediate families as well. Kaniewski has two children approximately the same age as Laney’s first two. Kaniewski’s oldest is Elizabeth, who will be 5 years old in May. Thomas will turn 3 in April. Elizabeth and Ellen Laney attend dance class together, and in late October the coaches came to pick up their children when Laney sounded an alarm.
“She said she was having contractions,” Kaniewski said. “I said, no, no, no. That can’t happen.”
It was a false alarm.
Laney did miss nine days with her team, including scrimmages. The preparation would have been a challenge even without the pregnancy. Divine Child was 20-6 last season but all five starters graduated. Add that two players suffered injuries, one a torn knee ligament, the other a concussion.
Formulating tryouts and making cuts tested Kaniewski’s resolve. Both Laney and Kaniewski had ideas on who their starters would be for some time, but things change. Players get better. Some don’t progress as quickly as others.
“That’s been the hard part,” Kaniewski said. “Then there was the parent meetings. I told Mary, no, no. I don’t want to do that alone.”
Laney, for the sake of both, moved the parent meeting up so they could tackle that together.
Then they received some outside help. Mary Lou Jansen, who coached those fine Divine Child teams during the early 1990s, offered her assistance. Kaniewski was grateful.
“She spent a few days with me,” Kaniewski said. “The kids were responsive. It’s just a different set of eyes.”
The lack of experience has forced the two to concentrate on the basics and not over-complicate things. Divine Child had opened 0-3 heading into Saturday night’s game against Saginaw Nouvel.
“Not many teams come back with no starters,” Laney said. “This group has been receptive. We’ve had five of six Division I players over the past several years. We don’t have that. We’re not worried about wins and losses. We want them to play hard and communicate.”
Tom Markowski is a columnist and directs website coverage for the State Champs! Sports Network. He previously covered primarily high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Chris and Mary Laney hold their newborn, Owen. (Middle) The Laney children, Ellen, Niall and Owen, smile while wearing their Divine Child hats. (Photos courtesy of the Laney family.)
Still #1: Heritage Lands 2nd Straight Title
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
March 23, 2019
GRAND RAPIDS – Not often is the reigning champion the hunter and not the hunted. But that’s how the Saginaw Heritage girls basketball approached this season.
With the graduation of some key members from the 2018 Class A title team, the Hawks felt they were being overlooked.
On Saturday, they re-established themselves as the top team among the state’s largest schools, now classified as Division 1.
Behind a stifling defense, Heritage earned a second straight MHSAA title by defeating top-ranked Southfield Arts & Technology 55-40 at Van Noord Arena on the campus of Calvin College.
“If anything, we kind of felt underestimated, like a lot of people didn’t think we were going to get right back,” Heritage senior Shine Strickland-Gills said. “We lost two players, and they scored a lot … and it didn’t look like we had much coming in through the tunnel after them, so they didn’t really think we were going to go back again. But we wanted to prove them all wrong, and our whole thing was to stick together. Our end goal, everybody’s end goal, was to play in the last game and win. We just knew what we had to do, and we made sure that got done.”
It was the third MHSAA championship for the Hawks (25-2), and it seemed fitting it was this senior class that spearheaded these last two. Strickland-Gills and classmates Moira Joiner and Mallory McCartney have been playing together for more than a decade, and had predicted they could accomplish this before they got into high school.
“They were eighth graders the last time we were in a Final Four, and they all cut school and came down to the Breslin Center and watched Heritage,” Hawks coach Vonnie DeLong said. “We lost that day, and they told me that day, ‘We’re getting back here and we’re winning it, Coach.’ They made good on their promise to me.”
Heritage looked like a team that knew it was supposed to be playing in Saturday’s moment, taking control early and remaining calm and composed while clinically finishing it off.
The Hawks were hitting 50 percent of their 3-pointers at one point in the third quarter, and finished the game with 19 assists on 20 made baskets. Joiner led the way with 17 points, eight rebounds and eight assists, nearly matching the triple double she had in Friday’s Semifinal against Wayne Memorial. Strickland-Gills added 16 points, eight rebounds, six assists and six blocks, while junior Keyonie Champion had 12 points. McCartney added seven points, five rebounds and five assists.
“Having them be seniors, not just seniors, but having been in this game before – having been in these big games is huge,” DeLong said. “Today they just knew. I talked to them this morning and told them, ‘This is it, last time you’re ever going to play together – you're going to keep playing, but not together – and this is the last chance you got. I’m going to tell you right now, last game senior year, if you can go out a winner, that’s absolutely the way you want to go.’”
While Heritage didn’t have much trouble settling in, the Hawks made it hard for the Warriors (24-2) to do so, especially on the offensive end. They played zone and closed down on everything in the paint, forcing Southfield A&T into its worst offensive performance of the season.
It was only the second time all year the Warriors – who shot 16 of 47 (34 percent) from the field – were held below 50 points. The other time was a 45-43 loss to Heritage in the second game of the season.
“They were in a zone, and the zone packed it in a little bit, and we were struggling to find some gaps to attack,” Southfield A&T coach Michele Marshall said. “We play inside-out, and it just appeared the gaps were not there. If they were, when we tried to attack, we were just a little bit hesitant.”
Zone isn’t the typical defensive setup for Heritage, but DeLong said possible fatigue from the previous night’s Semifinal and the importance of keeping Strickland-Gills out of foul trouble pushed her to make the change.
“I don’t think we’ve played a full game of zone all year this year,” DeLong said. “We played it a couple times last year, and it worked in the Final. We talked about it last night, watched some film today and did some walkthrough at a gym this morning. Most of them have played our zone enough, so they know what to do, but a couple of our kids are a little shaky. But we got them through, and it worked.”
The Warriors shot 6 of 21 (28.6 percent) in the first half, and just 2 of 8 (25 percent) in the second quarter. They played more than six minutes of the second quarter without star forward Alexis Johnson, who was sidelined with three fouls.
Heritage was able to take advantage during that span, stretching its lead to 11 points by halftime and never looking back.
Soleil Barnes led Southfield A&T with 14 points, while Cheyenne McEvans had 13.
PHOTOS: (Top) Heritage’s Mallory McCartney looks for open teammates Saturday during the Division 1 Final. (Middle) A&T’s Cheyenne McEvans directs her team’s offense.