P-W Earns Shot to Add to Title Collection
March 16, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – Pewamo-Westphalia is enjoying a championship-caliber school year.
And now the Pirates girls basketball team wants its piece of MHSAA title success.
P-W can claim its third Finals title of 2016-17 on Saturday, thanks to the hoops team's 64-51 win over Maple City Glen Lake in Thursday’s second Class C Semifinal.
The Pirates girls can join the football and boys cross country teams as champions when they take on Detroit Edison Public School Academy in the 4 p.m. championship game. The Semifinal was P-W’s first since 2002, and the title game appearance will be the program’s first since finishing Class C runners-up in 1983 and 1984 – making it seem like all of this recent winning might be contagious.
“I think it’s just the community. Our community is so supportive, as you can see at any game and any championships – our community is there,” said P-W senior guard Brenna Wirth, herself a main cog on the school’s girls track & field Division 3 title winner in 2015. “I think we feed off that, and it keeps us going.
“I’ve been playing basketball for several years now, longer than I’ve been running, and basketball is really important to me and the community.”
How much it means to Wirth and her teammates came out especially over Thursday’s final 19 minutes.
Glen Lake (23-4) entered the regular season unranked but had already eliminated No. 2 Traverse City St. Francis and No. 7 St. Ignace before taking the floor against the No. 6 Pirates. The Lakers didn’t waste time going after another giant, taking as much as a nine-point lead into the final three minutes of the first half.
“Throughout the season, we tend to say the same thing over and over – you never win the game in the first four minutes,” P-W coach Steve Eklund said. “They were outhustling us; I’d say for the first 8 to 10 minutes they were outhustling us. Sometimes you have to adjust to your opponent. I think it took us a little time tonight to settle into the environment.”
“Obviously we had to fight back every little run they had,” junior forward Emily Spitzley added. “We just had in our minds to keep fighting. It’s just about confidence.”
If the all-state second-teamer was lacking any, she found it as the comeback began.
Spitzley scored 20 of her game-high 24 points and grabbed eight of her 12 rebounds – and also blocked three shots – as the Pirates forced a 22-point swing.
P-W (24-2) closed the second quarter on an 8-0 run to get within 25-24 of Glen Lake by halftime. The Pirates then opened the third quarter on a 7-0 run to take a six-point lead.
Glen Lake got the advantage back twice with just under four minutes left in the third quarter, and after the Pirates rebuilt an eight-point lead got the deficit down to one again with 6:33 to play. But another P-W 8-0 run over the next three minutes finally put the game out of reach.
“We’ve had a lot of games where we had slow starts, but we’ve worked hard on coming out (strong) in the third quarter,” Glen Lake coach Jason Bradford said. “We just came out kinda slow on our heels and got away from what we usually do – pushing the ball, kicking it out. We were spinning our heels a little bit, and we got a little shell-shocked when the score started going the other way.”
Wirth added 13 points, and junior forward Kate Hengesbach added nine points, 12 rebounds and six steals off the bench in 20 minutes of play.
Junior guard Allie Bonzelet led three Lakers scoring in double figures with 14 points, and junior forward Jennifer LaCross had 13 and seven rebounds. Senior guard Kelly Bunek added 11 points and senior forward Sarah Carney finished her career grabbing nine rebounds.
P-W fans had about a 30-minute drive to fill their side of the Breslin stands Thursday, but Glen Lake had nearly as many fans – including three spectator bus loads – make a nearly four-hour trek.
“It’s just great to be able to put our name out there and show people all the hard work we’ve been putting in,” Carney said. “To just see the community come out and support us … it’s very rewarding to see the support we have.”
The Girls Basketball Finals are presented by Sparrow Health System.
PHOTOS: (Top) P-W’s Emily Spitzley drives to the basket during Thursday’s Class C Semifinal win. (Middle) Glen Lake’s Savannah Peplinski (24) works to get past the Pirates’ Ellie Droste.
Arbor Prep's Defense Reigns Again in Repeat Low-Scoring Title Clincher
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
March 22, 2025
EAST LANSING — There is just something about Ypsilanti Arbor Prep and its comfort with playing low-scoring games in the MHSAA Tournament.
After winning the 2024 Division 3 championship game while scoring just 33 points, Arbor Prep didn’t score more than 32 in its final four postseason games this winter.
But that mattered not, as the Gators still managed to win all of them and capture their second-straight Division 3 title and third in four years.
The latest and final triumph of the 2024-25 season was a 32-21 win over Rochester Hills Lutheran Northwest on Saturday at Breslin Center.
“We’re not a great offensive team, and part of that is we are playing five to six girls,” Arbor Prep head coach Scott Stine said. “We slow the ball down. We take time off the clock and when you do that, you’re not going to score a lot of points.”
Arbor Prep (17-12) entered the MHSAA Tournament unranked and with a losing record, but that was more a byproduct of playing a schedule filled with Division 1 and 2 opponents during the regular season.
“I knew this group was capable of doing what they just did,” Stine said. “I just didn’t know if it was ever going to click. The last week of the regular season, it did, and they continued this magical run.”
The Final against Lutheran Northwest was an offensive struggle for both teams.
Arbor Prep shot 35.5 percent from the field overall (11 of 31), 26.7 percent from 3-point range (4 of 15) and committed 17 turnovers.
Lutheran Northwest (21-7) shot 17.5 percent from the field overall (7 of 40) and went 1 for 14 from 3-point range, with the only made shot from beyond the 3-point line coming with 36.7 seconds remaining.
“We struggled getting into what we like to do,” Lutheran Northwest head coach Jimmy Mehlberg said. “We like to get into a quicker tempo. Credit to Arbor Prep. They did very well slowing it down on us.”
Arbor Prep held a 13-10 lead at halftime but started to gain a little separation in the third quarter when senior Eliza Bush hit consecutive 3-pointers to give the Gators a 19-12 lead.
Arbor Prep took a 22-13 lead into the fourth quarter. Lutheran Northwest managed to cut its deficit to 24-18 with 4:31 remaining on a basket by junior Addie Troska. But a driving layup by Angela Meggisson with 1:51 remaining gave the Gators a 28-18 lead and all but wrapped up the game.
Meggisson finished with 11 points and 10 rebounds, and Bush scored 10 points for Arbor Prep.
Troska scored eight points to lead Lutheran Northwest (21-7).
The Crusaders took solace in advancing to their first state championship game, and the fact that only three seniors will graduate from a program that has reached Breslin the last two seasons.
Lutheran Northwest lost to Arbor Prep in the Semifinals last year.
“It’s a great thing for our program to take this bigger step,” Lutheran Northwest senior Molly Griswold said, “and do something nobody else in school history has done.”
PHOTOS (Top) Arbor Prep’s Angela Meggisson makes a move toward the paint during her team’s Division 3 title-clinching win Saturday. (Middle) Lutheran Northwest’s Morgan Griswold (22) works to get up a shot over the Gators’ defense. (Below) Kylie Calabria (1) prepares to defend. (Photos by Adam Sheehan/Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)