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.
Class A: Comeback Classic
March 17, 2012
EAST LANSING – Shar’Rae Davis had one thought when she received the ball with only a few seconds remaining and Grand Haven’s first championship on the line in Saturday’s MHSAA Class A Final.
She saw the rim on Breslin Center’s north basket. And she knew she had 12 seconds to reach it.
“I didn’t even see the rest of my team. So I was like, I’ve got to score,” Davis said. “That was my mentality.
Not only did Davis race the length of the court; she drove to finish the third-longest comeback in MHSAA Girls Basketball Finals history.
Davis completed her lay-up with six seconds to play. Grosse Pointe South couldn’t connect on its final last-second attempt. And the only thing Davis was a second late for was the start of the celebration: Grand Haven 54, Grosse Pointe South 53.
“When I made the basket, I thought it was tied or something. I was looking around for the timeout. Nothing was happening,” she said. “Then I saw Abby (Cole) jump, everyone run at me. I still didn’t believe it. I had to look at the score.”
Believe it: Grand Haven won its first MHSAA championship after surviving a harrowing double-overtime Quarterfinal against East Lansing, and a late rush by 2011 champion Inskter in Friday’s Semifinal.
But Saturday’s comeback topped them both.
Starting at the end of the first quarter, Grosse Pointe South led for 24 minutes, 5 seconds straight. The Blue Devils’ advantage reached 18 points with 1:51 to go in the third quarter.
“Obviously things weren’t looking good for us down 18. It was another nightmare,” Buccaneers coach Katie Kowalczyk-Fulmer said. “But there was a lot of time left on the clock. And we just talked about getting back into it one possession at a time. You can’t get it all at once. We couldn’t foul just to foul because we knew if the game was going to come down to free throws and we put them at the line, we wouldn’t have a chance.”
Instead, she directed her players to deliver the ball repeatedly to Cole.
The 6-foot-5 junior scored nine of her 18 points over the final 9:38 of the game, including seven straight free throws as the Devils tried to keep her from getting any closer to the hoop (she also had eight rebounds and eight blocks). Davis scored 14 of her game-high 19 points during that 27-10 run.
But those efforts still nearly weren’t enough.
Reeling a bit after giving up the big lead, Grosse Pointe South got a jolt of hope from freshman guard Cierra Rice. Grand Haven took its first lead in two quarters with 1:10 to play, and held a two-point advantage with 24 second to go when Rice dropped in a lay-up, was fouled, and made the free throw to give the Devils back a one-point edge.
But after Davis’ ensuing full-court scoring run, the last attempt by the Devils didn’t fall.
Only Farmington Our Lady of Mercy in 1982 (19 points) and Detroit Cass Tech in 1987 (20) made bigger championship game comebacks than Grand Haven – both to win Class A titles as well.
“We knew we could do anything because of that Quarterfinal game,” Grand Haven senior Alex Law said of the 42-40 win over East Lansing. “It was crazy, but that gave us so much confidence. I was like, ‘Let’s go, we can do this. We’ve got this. It’s our last game. Let’s do it right.’”
Grand Haven finished 27-1, losing only to East Kentwood – a loss the Buccaneers avenged later in the season. They were ranked No. 1 heading into the postseason.
Grosse Pointe South (23-4) was only an honorable mention heading into playoffs. But that didn’t make Saturday any less heart-breaking.
Four Blue Devils scored at least 10 points, led by Rice with 14 and junior Claire DeBoer with 13. Three grabbed at least 10 rebounds – Senior Caitlin Moore had 12 to go with her 12 points, and senior Catherine Palazzolo had 10 to go with her 10 points as Grosse Pointe South outrebounded the taller Buccaneers by 19.
But nine of the Blue Devils 19 turnovers also came during that final Grand Haven run, caused in large part by the Bucs’ “monster” press defense, as they call it. It produced monstrous – and championship – results.
“The past couple of games when the pressure got on, we haven’t always handled it well. And they making the adjustment and really going inside, throwing into the big girls, definitely hurt,” Blue Devils coach Kevin Richards said. “What can you say? We made plays all but right at the very end. We had a great effort and the gameplan worked. We just need to have a little bit better ball security.”
Click for the box score. Watch the game and both teams' postgame press conferences at MHSAA.tv.
PHOTOS: (Top) Grand Haven celebrates its first MHSAA championship. (Photo courtesy of Terry McNamara Photography.)