No Disappointment for Arbor Prep
March 17, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – She needed about a month. But by the end of last April, Nastassja Chambers got over Ypsilanti Arbor Prep’s loss in the 2015 Class C Semifinals.
This weekend, she and her teammates are one step closer to avoiding disappointment – and then some.
The Gators set themselves up for a first championship in school history Thursday by returning to the Semifinals and downing Ithaca 72-44 at the Breslin Center.
Arbor Prep learned its share of lessons from last season’s four-point loss to eventual runner-up Flint Hamady. And they played all season to earn Saturday’s opportunity to face Traverse City St. Francis for the Class C title.
“That motivated us a lot. We’ve been talking about it all year,” Chambers said of the Hamady loss. “Every game we scheduled this year was to prepare us for now. So we made the schedule even harder than last year so we’d be ready this year. (And) we’ve been here before, so we’re not that nervous.”
Top-ranked Arbor Prep did play, arguably, the toughest schedule of any team in Class C this season. The Gators (23-2) beat two top-five teams in Class B and filled the schedule with larger schools including the reigning champions in Class B and Class A.
After a first quarter Thursday played nearly to a draw – Arbor Prep led at the end by one, 16-15 – the Gators unleashed what they’d learned over the last 12 months and a lot of what they’ve become known for over the last few seasons.
Arbor Prep outscored Ithaca 50-15 over the second and third quarters, taking advantage of 20 turnovers over those 16 minutes by scoring 30 points off those takeaways.
“That’s our style of play,” Chambers said. “We get the ball up the court, push it and run. We do good on the 3-on-2 fastbreak, the 2-on-1 fastbreak – that’s our bread and butter.”
Ithaca also suffered an unfortunate loss during the second quarter that surely affected ball security when senior point guard Brooklyn Dolloff was sidelined with a painful sprained ankle.
She had totaled four points – making both of her shots – two rebounds and an assist in her seven minutes, numbers that would’ve translated well over an entire game. Her absence also forced Ithaca – playing in its first Semifinal after also winning its first Regional title – to shift players into less familiar positions and roles.
“It was very upsetting. My coach even said, when it first happened, that I was more upset that I was going to be out than (because of) the pain,” said Dolloff, a three-year varsity player. “I really wanted to be there for my team.”
Arbor Prep, meanwhile, hit its stride. Although Ithaca made 50 percent of its shots for the game, it got off only 34 – half as many as the Gators.
Arbor Prep coach Rod Wells said his team focused on shooting this winter after making only 33 percent of its attempts from the floor during the 2015 Semifinal. This time, the Gators made 42 percent in addition to cutting their turnovers from 12 last season to seven.
“Energy, anticipation and just playing together. The ladies trust each other now,” Wells said. “We’ve been talking about trust all year. When you put pressure on the ball you can feel like you’re on an island. But the ladies understand that someone’s got your back.
“They remember the pain last year. I remember waking up Saturday morning and I didn’t know what to do. That feeling, they were feeling the same way. We just put it into our practices. Every time they ran a sprint or something, and didn’t reach our goal, we talked about it. Our goal was to get to Breslin, but not just get here – we’ve seen how it looks. But to win it.”
Chambers had 24 points, six assists and seven steals, making 10 of her 15 shots from the floor. Junior guard Ro’zhane Wells added 11 points, and junior guard Adrienne Anderson had 10 points, four steals and three assists.
Sophomore center Kayla Belles had 16 points, seven rebounds and three assists to lead the Yellowjackets (24-3), and junior center Maddie Brock added 11 points.
Ithaca entered the postseason ranked No. 7 and had its best season despite finishing only 5-16 three years ago, and then losing coach Bob Anderson midseason this winter when he retired due to health issues.
“We talked about it in the locker room; we said this feeling is not a good feeling. It kinda stinks,” said Ithaca coach Jessie Rayburn, who took over for Anderson after assisting him prior to his departure. “However, all the feelings leading up to it were pretty cool. And our community is awesome.”
The Girls Basketball Finals are presented by Sparrow Health System.
PHOTOS: (Top) Arbor Prep’s Cydney Williams pushes the ball upcourt during Thursday’s Class C Semifinal. (Middle) The Gators’ Kayla Knight (24) and Ithaca’s Kayla Belles grab for the opening jump.
Stine Bringing Championship Formula to Lumen Christi After Marvelous Arbor Prep Run
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
November 25, 2025
One of the first things Scott Stine noticed when he started his new gig as girls basketball head coach at Jackson Lumen Christi wasn’t the historic dome where the Titans play or the trophy cases just inside the entrance to the school.
It was the fellow coaches on staff at Lumen Christi.
“Everybody knows who (football coach) Herb (Brogan) is, but he is not only one of the greatest coaches ever, but probably the nicest guy you will ever meet,” Stine said. “He’s so humble. I very much enjoy getting to know him better.”
There’s more.
“Here, you are just surrounded by so many great coaches. I think the cross country coach (Mike Woolsey) has 12 state championships. The golf coach (Dave Swarthout) has 18 or something like that. We have coaches who are complete Hall of Famers who are around here every day.
“Everybody has been welcoming. It’s gone as good as I could hope for.”
Stine was a highly-successful girls basketball coach at Ypsilanti Arbor Prep for the past eight seasons, winning eight District, five Regional and three Finals titles during his tenure. Last season was perhaps the biggest surprise of all when he led an Arbor Prep team that was 10-12 during the regular season to seven straight wins in the MHSAA Tournament and the Division 3 championship.
“For my last year there, it couldn’t have worked out any better,” Stine said. “I think even I didn’t expect that one.”
Stine, however, turned some heads across the state when he decided in May to leave Arbor Prep and a program he has been around since the launch of the school 14 years ago to coach girls basketball at Lumen Christi. He left the job of athletic director and assistant principal as well and is now teaching world history and economics in Jackson.
He said those close to him probably weren’t surprised by the move – although he loved coaching at Arbor Prep.
“It will always have a huge, special place in my heart,” he said. “Leaving the basketball program was one of the toughest decisions I’ve had to make in my life.”
He takes over the Lumen Christi team that was 19-7 last winter with one of the most celebrated freshmen in the state in Kenna Hunt. Athletic director Jesse Brown coached the team but helped lure Stine and his 157-47 record to Jackson. The Titans actually ended their season with a 31-28 Quarterfinal loss to Stine’s Gators.
“The transition here has been everything I hoped it would be,” Stine said. “You have a community that definitely care about excellence. Faith comes first, then academics. Sports are a big priority. At this point, there’s no reason not to be successful here.”
He noted the positive environment at Lumen Christi.
“There is just an excitement at the school in general,” he said. “I have a lot of football kids in class. They’ve been excited since day one to see what can happen with the girls program. It’s a great community.”
Stine graduated from Muskegon Oakridge in 1996 and Grand Valley State University in 2002. He was on the Arbor Prep staff under Rod Wells when the Gators won their first Finals title in 2016.
At Lumen Christi, he will build around four returning starters, including Hunt, Lucy Wrozek, Lily Ganton and Ruby Boyce. He also has a talented group of freshmen and sophomores and a host of multi-sport athletes.
“Our fall workouts were pretty much all freshmen and sophomores,” he said. “The seniors will help us. They have things to offer. I’m really excited about our freshmen.”
Freshman Tristin Johnson will be on varsity from day one. She’s a point guard who plays on the Lumen Christi football team.
“She’s tough,” Stine said.
One of his first tasks at Lumen Christi was to upgrade the schedule.
“Our schedule has to be one top five toughest in the state,” Stine said. “In the Catholic League we play (Toledo) Notre Dame twice, (Toledo) Central Catholic is going to be pretty good. We play Ann Arbor (Father Gabriel) Richard twice. Those are six games that are pretty tough.
“We play Michigan Center in our opener and they are solid. We are playing Salem. Rod (Wells) and I get to go against each other. That will be tough because he’s one of my best friends.”
Also on the schedule is Detroit Country Day, Anthony Wayne from Ohio – which won 25 games last year – and Rockford.
“Maybe it didn’t need to be quite as tough as it ended up,” Stine said. “I had to tell our parents, ‘Listen, we want to win every game. There’s no one who wants to win every game more than I do. But we’re going to lose some games, probably. That’s just the way it is. The key is, once we get to March, we’ll be ready. We’ll be challenged. We’ll have seen every type of team, every style.
“That recipe proved to work at Arbor Prep. We’re sticking to that.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a news and sports reporter at the Adrian Daily Telegram and the Monroe News for 30 years, including 10 years as city editor in Monroe. He's written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. He is now publisher and editor of The Blissfield Advance, a weekly newspaper. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Then-Arbor Prep coach Scott Stine pulls out his clipboard while monitoring his team’s play during last season’s Division 3 Semifinal against Niles Brandywine. (Middle) Stine talks things over with his Arbor Prep players during a break in the championship victory.