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.
To Get Ahead, Heritage Gets Defensive
March 16, 2018
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
GRAND RAPIDS – This season, the Saginaw Heritage girls basketball team had, as junior Shine Strickland-Gills called it, an “epiphany.”
And it’s made the difference between another 20-win season and getting a chance to play for the Class A championship.
Expectations have been high the last few seasons for a Hawks group that’s shown plenty of ability against big-time opponents, but never put it entirely together for an MHSAA Tournament run.
After Friday’s 46-28 Semifinal win over Grosse Pointe North, Heritage finds itself one more victory from making good on all of that potential.
“It was a disappointment (last year) because we lost in second round Districts, and we were supposed to win,” Strickland-Gills said. “We didn’t because we really didn’t come out hard, and I feel like we’ve done what we’re supposed to do. We’ve actually listened and taken heed of what (coach Vonnie DeLong) has told us. And we’ve actually applied it in a game, and it really works.
“We had an epiphany.”
Heritage will face East Lansing in Saturday’s 12:15 championship game at Calvin College’s Van Noord Arena.
A Class A title would be the Hawks’ first since 2002 and cap a fourth straight season with at least 20 wins – but after Heritage was eliminated during the first week of the tournament a year ago.
All but four of the team’s points Friday were scored by four players with lots of experience, but who also had experienced last season’s disappointment.
Junior Mallory McCartney had 13 points, while Strickland-Gills added 12, seven rebounds and four steals. Senior Jessica Bicknell had eight points and three steals, and junior Moira Joiner had nine points, five rebounds and three steals.
Joiner scored six points below her average and had only a point during the first half. But she also defended Grosse Pointe North star junior Julia Ayrault –holding her to 13 points, six below her average as well.
“My (coaches) go a great job scouting and really let us know what we have to do,” Joiner said. “For me, if I’m guarding the best player, I need to look at film and know what their tendencies are. Like Julia, she likes to drive and pull up, or she’ll shoot the long 3 so I have to get my hands up. It’s just a lot of paying attention.
“It was pretty obvious today; I didn’t have the best game I could have. But I knew if I could keep Julia to a certain amount of points, then my team could pick it up on the offensive end.”
Despite shooting only 38 percent from the floor over the first 16 minutes, Heritage (26-1) led by three after a quarter and nine at halftime. The Hawks kicked into gear during a 17-6 third quarter run as they drilled 57 percent of their shots and pulled away.
The 6-foot-2 Ayrault, who already has committed to sign with Michigan State, had nine rebounds and four blocks to go with her 13 points. But North (20-6) couldn’t recover from 23 turnovers, and as a team put up 18 fewer shots than the Hawks.
The 28 points were a season low by 13, but the experience should prove valuable for a team graduating only one senior.
“This whole season has been pretty much a gift to us. When we started, I didn’t think we were a very good basketball team,” said North coach Gary Bennett, who completed his 35th season. “Some time in January, things started to click a little bit and we started to become a better basketball team. And I mean a team in the truest sense of the word – we have a superstar and we’ve got role players, and the role player know they need the superstar and the superstar knows she needs the role players. And that’s kinda been our season.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Saginaw Heritage’s Madison Camp, left and Mallory McCartney provide a pair of obstacles between Grosse Pointe North and the basket Friday. (Middle) Heritage’s Moira Joiner defends North’s Julia Ayrault.