Mooney Girls Re-Ignite Proud Program
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
March 14, 2018
The Cardinal Mooney girls basketball season ended last week in the Regional Final with a loss to Waterford Our Lady of the Lakes.
On the surface, for a program with Mooney’s rich history in the past decade-plus, it was disappointing – especially against a longtime rival that went on Tuesday to clinch a Semifinal berth.
But considering the Cardinals didn’t make it to Game 1 of the regular season two years ago, any disappointment was overshadowed by the massive steps forward the program has taken.
“This is about perspective,” Mooney coach Mike Lombard said. “Two years ago, we didn’t even have a varsity program. This year, we went to Allen Park Inter-City Baptist for a Regional Semifinal, were down 12 late and went on an 18-1 run to end the game. Everyone was upset (after the Regional Final loss), but there’s got to be perspective to say that the girls have come a long way.”
Mooney, which played in the Class D Final in 2009 and advanced to the Semifinals in 2008 and 2014, didn’t field a varsity team for the 2015-16 season because of a lack of players. With just seven, the vast majority underclassmen, the Cardinals opted to simply play a JV schedule.
“It was kind of crazy going from being coached by coach (Susan) Everhart, which was a really intense experience, to going backward,” said Lilly Wolf, who played varsity as a sophomore in 2014-15. “I think I kind of knew that eventually in my senior year there would be a varsity team, and it would be better for the program and myself to stick with it.”
It was a tough decision for a proud program, but it appears to have worked out. The Cardinals won the Detroit Catholic League Intersectional title in their first year back, and advanced to the District championship game before losing to Sterling Heights Parkway Christian.
Lombard gave a lot of the credit for that quick rebound to Wolf, who is now a freshman at Saginaw Valley State University.
“We were incredibly lucky that Lilly Wolf stayed with the program,” he said. “We played 22 games last year, and of those 22 games, Lilly would have been the best player on the floor in 17 of them. She bailed us out. We were able to have a little success because of Lilly Wolf, and to a lesser extent Lauren Luzynski and Molly Lombard. Those three girls really saved our bacon. They made basketball look attractive again.”
Mooney’s remaining players took advantage by getting to work in the offseason – not only on the court, but off it, recruiting their classmates to come out for the team.
“We tried to recruit those girls that we knew had played basketball in the past or that were just athletic,” Luzynski, a junior, said. “We just wanted to get people to come out for the team. We wanted to make Mooney great again.”
Building up numbers at a small Class D school was a major step for the program, and this season Mooney finished with 11 on the varsity team and eight on the JV, more than double the number of players in the program two years ago.
“We really had to say to ourselves that we have to start somewhere,” Molly Lombard, a senior, said. “With all of us working hard, we had to say that we have to start somewhere and build something up. I think people want to be part of something like that, and leave a mark on their school.”
Mooney won another Catholic League Intersectional title this season, won a District title and finished 18-6. It was the type of season nobody saw coming two years ago.
“Yeah, it was definitely unexpected,” Luzynski said. “When I came in my freshman year, we barely even had a JV team. We barely had enough girls to have a basketball team. Making such a strong comeback in these last two years was very unexpected.”
There is certainly room still to grow, and the loss to Lakes showed that. It was also a call back to the past, when Mooney and Lakes would battle seemingly every postseason.
“There was some symbolism there, but also I think a dash of realism for the girls who are going to stay in the program,” Mike Lombard said. “That Lakes team puts in a lot of work as Lakes teams always do. Mooney teams have to do the same thing. So I think it was a look to the past, but also a look to the future to see where they want to be and where to get back to.”
Putting in the work should be nothing new for this group of Cardinals, and those who enter the program will have a good example to look to thanks to the teams from the past few years.
“I watched the girls play at Mooney when I was in eighth grade -- I was at their camp in seventh and eighth grade,” Molly Lombard said. “I knew how good they were, and I was hoping to bring that back to Mooney. I feel like we did bring that back to Mooney. We have a JV team now; we have a varsity. We have a new legacy going on at Mooney, and it’s great to be a part of it.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Marine City Cardinal Mooney players stand with their Class D District trophy won two weeks ago. (Middle) Junior Casey Rice puts up a shot this season. (Photos courtesy of the Cardinal Mooney girls basketball program).
Significance of Historic Run, Relationships Formed Live On for 1973 Unity Champs
By
Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com
August 7, 2026
It has been more than five decades, but Kim Hansen and Marcia (Visser) Beutel can still recall certain moments from a historic night in mid-December when their Hudsonville Unity Christian girls basketball team accomplished a tremendous feat.
On Dec. 15, 1973, at East Kentwood High School, the teammates helped the Crusaders win the first MHSAA Girls Basketball Finals championship in Class B.
Unity Christian defeated Saginaw MacArthur 49-45 before a crowd of 1,000.
“i just remember the team, the bus ride out there, and I remember just how excited we were to be together and what we had accomplished as a group,” Hansen said. “Our parents and friends were such big supporters through the whole process, and when I think back I see faces of pure joy.”
A total of 629 schools participated in that first tournament, which like now lasted three weeks and was divided into four classifications.
Cindy Masselink scored 17 points and Deb Aukeman added 16 points to lead the Crusaders to the championship win.
“For us, it was an excitingly significant day because we had been working hard throughout the season, and we, as women, could be the first winners of a state championship for our school and the state,” Beutel said. “A lot of us had been playing together since the sixth grade, and that camaraderie, that friendship, that teamwork and the work we had put in was going to end with a state championship.
“We were very blessed to be there, and we also knew that we were pioneers and trailblazers in the game.”
The Crusaders consisted of 11 girls, three managers and head coach Susan Contant.
An interesting sidenote from the Class B title game: As the home team, Unity Christian was to wear white uniforms. But the Crusaders didn’t own those.
“There were limited resources for women's sports back then so we had to wear the boys uniforms for the state championship,” Beutel said. “They didn't fit well so we had to wear T-shirts underneath them.”
One thing the 1973 squad possessed was size, which proved to be a benefit as the 3-point shot didn’t yet exist.
“We took each tournament game as it came to us and just kind of did our thing,” Hansen said. “I look back at our pictures, and we were huge. We had a starting five of 6-foot plus, and we were a big team. That definitely worked in our favor, and I really don't think that we were going to be denied.”
Beutel and Hansen, both 69, are organizing a night to recognize this special group of women.
It will take place Dec. 11 during a Unity Christian girls and boys varsity game night.
“We are all much older and lives have happened and we are in different places, but I’m hoping that many of the teammates will come back for that,” Hasen said. “I know our head coach and her husband are going to come back for that, and I think that is just amazing. I haven't seen Sue since 1973.
“I got to see some of my teammates when we were recognized at Central Michigan for the 30-year anniversary, and I’m looking forward to seeing who is going to be able to make it and hoping that many do.”
Beutel lives in Toronto with her husband, Robert. She recently visited her old high school.
“They had a list of all the state championships on the wall, and the first one was us,” she said. “That was very emotional for me to see that, to see that recognition.”
Beutel met her husband at the University of Michigan, and they had three kids. One of their daughters, Sophie, played Division I basketball at Brown.
Beutel moved to Toronto in 1987 and coached basketball in a recreational league while helping grow the game. She was president of the Toronto Basketball Association, which has surged to 1,000 athletes.
The country needed to push for basketball representation and now has the NBA’s Toronto Raptors and the Toronto Tempo, currently playing its inaugural season in the WNBA.
“Back then it was a hockey country, so I had to search for basketball in Toronto,” Beutel said. “I got involved in it and expanded it on the girls side and always coached my kids.”
Now retired after a career as a health care executive, Beutel and her husband love adventures and have traveled to several countries. “There is so much more to experience in life,” she said.
While she stays active by playing tennis, cycling and kayaking, Beutel also plays clarinet in a band and volunteers at a cancer support group as a peer counselor after enduring two bouts of breast cancer.
After high school, Hansen played four years of basketball at Grand Valley State University before being drafted by the San Francisco Pioneers of the Women’s Professional Basketball League.
She played there one season before being traded to the Chicago Hustle. She also spent time with the Minnesota Fillies before the league went bankrupt and disbanded in 1981.
“I think I made $7,000 for my salary and the season was very short, but it was such an amazing experience and San Francisco was a very good franchise,” Hansen said. “They had good ownership and we flew all over the place and stayed in really nice hotels. They had a good practice facility, and we were treated really well.”
Prior to a game scheduled in Chicago on March 21, 1981, Hansen and her Fillies teammates walked off the court before the starting lineups were announced in a protest over unpaid salaries.
“We planned to do our warm-up, go back to the locker room and then get back in vans and drive back to Minnesota because we weren’t getting paid,” Hansen said. “That was our way of showing that we were not happy with ownership and the only way that we could make a stand.”
Despite the disbanding of the league, Hansen said lifelong relationships were formed.
“The beauty of playing sports is relationships, and even relationships that we developed at Unity are still so strong, and relationships I developed while playing pro ball are still very active and to me that is the beauty of playing sports,” she said.
After the WPBL, Hansen went to graduate school at Lamar University in Texas and eventually became an educator and coach at several colleges and high schools, including Wichita State and North Central College (Ill.).
Her final stop was Cleveland Heights High School, where she coached and taught physical education and health. She lives in Kirtland, Ohio, and retired from teaching and coaching in 2024 although she still works part-time in the transportation department.
“I love coaching and I always loved practice,” Hansen said. “I just finished working with four seventh-grade boys and helping them with fundamentals and skills. I just enjoy that part of it so much.”
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PHOTOS (Top) The 1973 Unity Christian girls basketball team poses for a team photo with its championship trophy; Kim Hansen (20) and Marcia Beutel (12) then and now. (Middle) Unity coach Susan Contant holds the championship trophy surrounded by her players after the clinching victory. (Below) Hansen stands for a photo with her San Francisco Pioneers teammates during the 1979-80 season. (Photos provided by Kim Hansen and Marcia Beutel.)