Grass Lake Caps Thrilling Rise with 1st Finals Title
By
Jason Schmitt
Special for MHSAA.com
April 9, 2021
EAST LANSING — Though it may very well look like a fun play on words, Grass Lake girls basketball coach Andrea Cabana has established quite a culture in the small town located just east of Jackson.
And it’s really beginning to pay off.
“It’s a grass-root, fundamental approach to changing the overall culture of the program,” she said. “We’re very in-tune to the younger kids in the Junior Warriors (program), throughout the middle school to JV and varsity. It’s a full program effort to keep everyone involved.”
On Friday, she and her Grass Lake team took another step in keeping everyone involved, capturing the school’s first girls basketball state championship. The Warriors overcame an early seven-point deficit and held off a late charge by Kent City for a 52-50 victory in the Division 3 Final at the Breslin Center.
Trailing by 10 points with just more than five minutes remaining in the game, Kent City went on a 10-2 run to nearly dissolve Grass Lake’s lead. Seniors Kenzie Bowers and Jenna Harrison hit back-to-back 3-pointers to get their team within four points at 46-40. After a Lauren Pongracz layup put it back to a six-point advantage for the Warriors, Harrison hit another 3 and Bowers hit one of two free throws to make it a 46-44 game, in favor of Grass Lake.
The two teams would trade baskets before Grass Lake junior Lexus Bargesser hit a pair of free throws with 35 seconds remaining to give her team a four-point lead. She added two more with 10 seconds left to essentially seal the victory for her team.
“I feel so proud of our team and how we pulled through and didn’t let the pressure get to us,” Bargesser said. “Truly, this is the best thing that any basketball player could imagine happening to them. To be able to go and say you won a state championship is truly such a blessing.”
Kent City entered the game unbeaten at 21-0 and jumped out to early leads of 16-9 and 21-17 thanks in part to its 3-point shooting. The Eagles shot nearly 40 percent from beyond the arc, hitting 11 of their 28 attempts.
They also played well defensively early on, keeping Grass Lake’s two leading scorers, Bargesser and Abrie Cabana, in check.
“The girls executed the game plan absolutely perfectly,” Kent City head coach Scott Carlson said. ”We wanted to take away (Bargesser) and (Cabana) and we did that in the first quarter, the first half really. But they had some players hit some shots that we were going to make them shoot.”
Bargesser finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds and Cabana had 10 points to go along with her five rebounds. Junior Gabrielle Lutchka hit four 3-pointers and scored all 14 of her points in the first half.
Harrison led Kent City with 16 points, while Bowers chipped in 13.
“We had a great season,” Carlson said. “These girls played absolutely fantastic. They overcame a lot and worked their tails off all offseason on their own when we couldn’t get together. I couldn’t be more proud of them.”
For Grass Lake, the championship is a culmination of five years of growth in the program, a program which Coach Cabana took over five years ago. The Warriors faced one of the toughest schedules in the state this season, which helped prepare them for Friday.
“We intentionally had a very tough schedule this year,” said the coach, who now has a 95-18 record in five years with the program. “Our philosophy is we want to see the best. We want to see how good we are. We want to be pushed to our limits. Teams like that will expose every weakness that you have. So we were able to work on the things that needed to be adjusted before big games like this.”
Grass Lake also captured its first Regional title this year, having fallen just short a couple of times under Cabana.
“Our program has definitely been on the rise the past couple of years,” Lutchka said. “We had a team make it to the Regional Final and (it) ended up not winning, so we’ve been trying to get past that point. Every year, we’ve gotten better and better and better.”
And this year, the Warriors reached the basketball summit.
“It’s huge for the girls within the program, something to build on and keep focusing on,” Cabana said. “It’s huge for the district. We’ve never won a basketball state championship at Grass Lake, and I think it’s huge for the community. We’ve had people who graduated a long time ago show up and give us their support. The amount of people who have reached out wishing us luck is astronomical. It will (someday) become a basketball town. We’re working on it.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Grass Lake's Lexus Bargesser (1) tries to get a hand on a shot during Saturday's Division 3 Final at Breslin Center. (Middle) Kent City's Lexie Bowers (3) makes her move around the arc with Amber Boomer defending. (Click for more from Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)
Centreville's Road Paved with Success
February 7, 2017
By Ryan Boldrey
Special for Second Half
When the Centreville girls hoops season got underway, head coach Jill Peterson gave her players a destination for which to shoot.
And no, it wasn’t the school’s first Regional appearance since 1998 – though after the team’s 14-1 start, that is beginning to look like a distinct possibility.
The destination was Deer Lodge, Montana.
Yet why would a girls basketball coach from southwest Michigan set her team’s collective sight on a place like Deer Lodge, Montana?
“At the beginning of the season we compared our season to a road trip,” Peterson explained, pointing out that Deer Lodge was a spot along I-90 that just seemed the right distance away. “Every day we talk about how far we’ve traveled. If it’s a real good practice (or game) we travel a good distance. If we don’t have a good practice, we talk about it and then set a goal for the next day, which may just be getting to the next city.”
To demonstrate how far the team has gone, Peterson hung a road map in the Bulldogs’ locker room. And while outsiders may not get to glimpse that map and see the marker making its way across South Dakota en route to Deer Lodge, they have witnessed Centreville sprint out to an undefeated start in Berrien-Cass-St. Joseph Conference play and rise to No. 4 in The Associated Press Class C poll – the first time the program has been ranked in recent memory.
“When my girls saw the tweet recently that we were ranked, they texted me and said, ‘What does this even mean?’” said Peterson, who played basketball for the Bulldogs from 2001-2004. “They had no concept. And like I told them, it may change the perception of what other people think of us, but we should still think the same thing we did yesterday.”
Despite the level of excitement that comes with being ranked, remaining grounded has not been an issue.
“I definitely think it caught a lot of us off guard,” sad senior point guard Skyler DeMeyer, who dishes out a team-high 6.5 assists per game. “We weren’t expecting it, but we are trying not to think about it because anything can happen on any given night and we need to keep ourselves to a higher standard. We realize that we can always get better, and every practice we push each other to do so. We know every other team we are going to see is getting better too.”
DeMeyer has been a motivating force both through her words and actions for her teammates, and prides herself on strong communication, tough-nosed defense and creating for her teammates on the offensive end.
“I’m not a huge scorer, but I like to see the floor and I feel very confident with all my teammates,” she said. “If I get them the ball they are going to do something with it. Whether it’s another pass, a score or a foul drawn, they are going to do something.”
And while the offense may run through the scrappy senior, it’s the youthful power in the post on the receiving end of so many of DeMeyer’s passes that has helped propel the program to the top of the BCS Blue and give Bulldogs fans visions of Centreville’s first league title since the school last won a St. Joseph Valley title in 1989, as well as hopes for a bright future.
Freshman Joanna Larsen – who missed the team’s only loss in the season opener against Constantine – and sophomore Samara Schlabach provide a one-two punch down low, leading a balanced attack that sees no Centreville players averaging double figures in scoring this season.
Larsen was originally supposed to be on the junior varsity team this year but impressed Peterson so much during the preseason she was called up to the varsity.
“Joanna, as a freshman, is already so far up there with everything, it’s amazing,” said Schlabach, who leads the team scoring 9.5 points per game and surprised herself when she was named to the varsity club as a sophomore. “I’m really excited to see how far she’ll go, because she is crazy good. I’m really excited for the years to come to play with her.”
Schlabach hopes that they can build in the girls basketball program what the baseball program already has – expectations of success year-in and year-out, and she is excited to be a part of it.
Right now, though, the team is focused on getting from city to city. Destination Deer Lodge and a potential District tournament rematch with Constantine, something they don’t talk about – yet.
“We might get some flat tires along the way,” Peterson said. “But our goal is to just keep moving. If today is a flat tire, tomorrow is going to be a better day. We haven’t peaked yet, and we want to do that at the right time.”
Other players who have stepped up for the Bulldogs this year include Hannah Rice, Carly Todd, Brittany Morris, Carlee Odom and Kayla Gest, the latter of whom has dazzled with her outside shooting touch and lockdown defense.
PHOTOS: (Top) Centreville works to get the offense going during a 21-20 win over White Pigeon on Dec. 2. (Middle) The Bulldogs have held opponents to fewer than 25 points six times this season. (Photos courtesy of JoeInsider.com.)