'Fire & Ice' Sail Mona Shores into Regional
By
Tom Kendra
Special for MHSAA.com
March 6, 2017
Guard play is crucial in girls basketball.
Especially in March, and definitely in the second half of a District championship game against a crosstown rival.
Jordan Walker, a 5-foot-7 Miss Basketball finalist for Muskegon Mona Shores, took control the way a senior guard is supposed to – scoring the first eight points of the second half Friday, including hitting two big 3-pointers, and finishing with a game-high 21 points as the Sailors blew open a relatively close game and held on for a 50-43 victory over host Muskegon Reeths-Puffer for their third consecutive Class A District title.
“You can’t stop her,” Mona Shores coach Brad Kurth said amidst the postgame celebration. “You can slow her down, but she’s going to keep coming.”
Mona Shores, 19-3 and champion of the Ottawa-Kent Conference Black, advanced to face O-K Red champion East Kentwood (22-1) in Tuesday’s 6 p.m. Class A Regional opener at Zeeland East.
Walker, who has signed with Western Michigan University where she will play with her older sister, Jasmyn, has been driving hard toward a big finish all season long. She now has more than 1,500 career points after breaking the Mona Shores girls basketball scoring record in January, held for 22 years by another Miss Basketball finalist, Jamie Ahlgren, who went on to star at Oakland University. Walker scored 39 points in a win over Muskegon and notched a quadruple-double with 22 points, 14 rebounds, 14 steals and 10 assists in a win over Grand Rapid Union.
But as impressive as Walker has been, the reason the Sailors have been able to knock off teams with superior front lines like Reeths-Puffer is because Walker is not alone in the backcourt.
Joining Walker is 5-6 sophomore dynamo Alyza Winston, a duo Kurth has dubbed “Fire and Ice,” and opposing coaches have pulled their hair out trying to contain.
Walker is the “ice” – the refined, composed senior who never gets rattled despite constant double teams, box-and-ones and other gimmicks designed to throw her off her game.
Winston is the “fire” – the energetic, speedy sophomore who breaks down defenses off the dribble (and with an ankle-breaking crossover dribble) and steps up anytime the Sailors’ offense gets stagnant.
The way that dynamic duo interacts and conspires to frustrate opponents was on display in Friday’s District championship game.
Walker caught fire to open the second half, turning a 10-point halftime lead into a seemingly comfortable 31-13 advantage early in the third quarter. That’s when Reeths-Puffer coach Brandon Barry called a timeout and adjusted even more of the Rockets’ defense toward the task of slowing down Walker.
Enter Winston.
For much of the remainder of the game, Shores started its attack with the ball in the hands of Winston, whose dynamic ball-handling skills have brought her plenty of offers from Division I college programs, even though she still has two years of high school remaining. Winston, who finished with 13 points, repeatedly broke through fullcourt pressure and then either pulled it out to run off clock or dished it off inside to fellow underclassmen Nia Miskel, Ryleigh Wehler and Veronica Kastelic.
“Our guards were the difference,” said Walker, whose mother, Danielle Smith-Walker, is a counselor at Mona Shores and a varsity assistant coach. “People say that a basketball team will go only as far as the guards will take them, so we’ll see how far we can go.”
While the District title game was a classic matchup of Reeths-Puffer’s inside strength vs. Mona Shores’ guards, Tuesday’s Regional showdown with East Kentwood will feature two of the top backcourts in West Michigan.
Kentwood went undefeated in the O-K Red behind the guard trio of senior Anaya Powell, defensive stopper Amari Brown and Mauriya Barnes. How that threesome matches up with Walker and Winston could determine the outcome of the Regional showdown, but on Friday night, Kurth was just relieved to finally be playing an opponent outside of the Muskegon area.
Over the past two seasons, the lakeshore “big three” of Mona Shores, Reeths-Puffer and Muskegon High have battled during O-K Black and District action. Shores discovered how hard it is to beat a good team three times in one season Wednesday night, when it needed two clutch free throws from Kastelic in the waning seconds to edge Muskegon, 50-49. Then the Sailors had to turn around two nights later and fend off Reeths-Puffer, which had beaten them by nine points the last time they played at Puffer’s gym.
“I know it breaks their heart to lose this game,” Kurth said, speaking after Friday’s Reeths-Puffer game, though the same emotions applied to Wednesday’s win over Muskegon. “These rivalries have made us all better, and it has made Muskegon-area basketball better.”
Walker is the lone senior starter for Mona Shores, whose season ended last year in a Regional championship game loss to Hudsonville, 45-44.
Hudsonville faces Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern in Tuesday’s second Regional game at Zeeland East.
Tom Kendra worked 23 years at The Muskegon Chronicle, including five as assistant sports editor and the final six as sports editor through 2011. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Muskegon, Oceana, Mason, Lake, Oceola, Mecosta and Newaygo counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Mona Shores' Jordan Walker (22) works to get past a Muskegon defender during a game earlier this season. (Middle) The Sailors' Alyza Winston (3) races for a loose ball. (Photos by Tim Reilly.)
Young Bedford Emerges with Quarterfinal Run
March 18, 2019
By Doug Donnelly
Special for Second Half
TEMPERANCE – The timing of girls basketball season in Michigan was about to change, and Temperance-Bedford boys and girls basketball coach Bill Ryan knew he had a difficult choice.
It was about that time that 10 girls walked into his Bedford High School classroom and asked him to remain their basketball coach. It was a slam dunk decision.
“I have no regrets about that,” said Ryan, who will coach the Mules in Tuesday’s Division 1 Quarterfinal against Wayne Memorial after winning his second Regional championship last week. “None.”
Ryan has had a string of success coaching the Bedford girls, including a 25-1 team in 2008-09 and this year’s team that turned some heads in southeast Michigan by going 20-5 and reaching the Quarterfinals despite carrying just two seniors on its roster and being led in scoring and rebounding by freshmen.
“I knew we would be okay,” said Ryan. “But the Southeastern Conference is so strong. Saline had a real solid team, and Ann Arbor Pioneer is loaded. I knew we would be good, but I didn’t know what the wins and losses would look like.”
This is Ryan’s fourth run into the Quarterfinals. He was an assistant coach on two Bedford girls teams that made consecutive trips to the Class A Quarterfinals in the early 2000s. He was the Bedford boys varsity basketball coach from 2001 to 2007.
He spent three seasons coaching both varsity teams. When the seasons shifted beginning with 2007-08, however, that was no longer possible. That’s when the girls came to his classroom and said they wanted him to remain their coach and keep the program rolling.
Ryan, who played basketball at Bedford, is 244-101 as the Mules girls varsity coach. Combined with 72 victories in his seven boys seasons, he now has 316 wins at his alma mater.
“They just said, ‘Let’s stay together,’” Ryan said. “Several of the girls were sophomores at the time. They were a coach’s dream. If I was having an open gym or something all I would have to do is call one girl and they would all be there. It ended up being a good move for me.”
Ryan has made all the right moves from the sidelines of this Kicking Mules team. In addition to its tough SEC schedule, Ryan piled onto its slate a handful of high-quality teams from northwest Ohio to help the Mules get ready for not only the conference battles but the MHSAA Tournament. That is paying dividends now as Bedford has won 13 of its past 14 games.
“We had two really good games in the Region to advance,” Ryan said. “I think our District got us ready for those games.”
Bedford started the season blazing hot, winning its first five games, including two to claim the Southgate Holiday Tournament championship. That’s when the Mules hit a rough patch – dropping four of six games, including three SEC Red games. The Jan. 18 loss to Monroe was a turning point, Ryan said.
“We let a 10-point lead evaporate in the fourth quarter,” Ryan said. “Monroe is a big rival for us. That didn’t sit well with a lot of girls. There were no team meetings or anything like that, but they were aware.”
By then Ryan had also turned to 6-foot-2 freshman Sophia Gray and his 5-11 freshmen daughter, Grace Ryan, for more productivity. They responded in a big way. Grace leads the team in scoring at about 9.5 points a game. It’s a typical Ryan-coached team, however, where the girls seemingly take turns leading the team in scoring and several average around the 7-10 point mark.
“They could start for us, but I like the way things have worked out,” he said. “They come in about the 4-minute mark, sometimes the 2-minute mark, and they give us an immediate spark. Once they learned the nuances of our defense, I had no inhibitions about leaving them out there at key points of the game.”
Ryan and Gray both came into the season ready to play.
“They are friends, and they have played together all along,” Ryan said. “They have played some AAU and travel ball. They’ve played a lot of basketball, competitive basketball, against a lot of good competition. When they get to the varsity, they’ve played against a lot of great players already. They are not in awe of anyone. They were ready for the rigors of varsity basketball.”
The team has been balanced all season, but during the tournament run that sharing of the scoring wealth seems to have taken on even greater meaning.
In the Regional Semifinal win over Detroit Cass Tech, 6-1 sophomore Molly Koviak scored 14 points and Ryan 12. In the Regional Final win over Dearborn Heights Crestwood, junior Aubrie Zeunen and Savannah Killinen shared the team lead with 12 points each while junior Madison Norton and Ryan each scored 10 points.
Bedford’s two seniors are Selena Sandoval and Sarah Koviak, and both play important roles on the team. Killinen is a talented 5-7 sophomore.
“She has some swag about her that we really like,” Ryan said.
After the Regional championship, Killinen didn’t seem fazed by the fact the Mules were headed to the elite eight.
“It feels good, especially since we are a really young team,” she said. “This is what we’ve dreamed of – to see it come true is awesome,” she said.
The Kicking Mules will get its toughest test to date Tuesday against 23-2 Wayne Memorial, a team loaded with college signees and next-level prospects.
“It’s a win-win game for us,” Ryan said. “I wanted them to get a deep run into the tournament to get that experience. To win a Regional is just the cherry on top. But I wouldn’t put anything past our girls. They don’t cower to anyone, and I know they’ll be fighting to the end. We wear the underdog role pretty well.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTO: Temperance Bedford girls basketball coach Bill Ryan talks things over with his players during a game this season. (Photo by Vanessa Ray.)