Plan Plays Out Well for Cousino Standout
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
December 1, 2016
WARREN – As a teacher at Carter Middle School, Mike Lee, the varsity girls basketball coach at Warren Cousino, was approached by one of his students who made a rather boisterous statement.
“There was this girl,” Lee said. “She was in the sixth grade and she came up to me and said, ‘I’m going to play for you as a freshman.’ No, I didn’t believe her. She was long, but she was a bean pole.”
Intrigued, Lee went to watch this skinny 10-year-old play and was impressed but not yet sold.
This girl is now one of the state’s best basketball players. Her name is Kierra Fletcher, and she won the hearts of everyone in the Warren Consolidated School system – which includes high schools Cousino, Mott and Sterling Heights – by leading the Patriots, and the Warren district as a whole, to their first girls MHSAA Finals basketball title.
By the time Fletcher was in the eighth grade, Lee knew Fletcher’s bold statement would come to fruition. She was that good.
“She was still skinny,” Lee said. “It wasn’t until her junior year that she bulked up.
“Obviously, she’s talented. I am pretty lucky to have someone like Fletch. But it’s what she does for the other players that makes her special. She makes them better. She puts them in spots to succeed. They want to play faster. There’s a higher energy. On the defensive side, you know she’s out there, getting steals and such. The others feed off of her.”
Fletcher, 16, is 5-foot-9 and a bundle of energy. And that energy was there from the start.
“I was out in (first grade) early,” Fletcher said. “My mom said I was talking all of the time. The teachers (in preschool) told her I was way ahead of the other kids.”
Born and raised in Detroit, Fletcher attended Dove Academy until the third grade, when her family moved to Warren. She attended Siersma Elementary within the Warren Consolidated district and then went to Carter.
Fletcher was also ahead of the curve when it came to basketball. She started playing competitively in the Warren recreation leagues, but before that she got the itch playing in her grandmother’s driveway.
“She had a basket in her backyard,” Fletcher said. “I would play by myself, and sometimes I’d play with an older cousin and my dad (Anthony Fletcher). My dad used to be really good. He played in college and he could have gone pro, but he had a bad heart and had to stop playing.”
Fletcher began playing AAU basketball in the fifth grade. It took less than a week for the coaches to move Fletcher up to play with the sixth grade team. That was nothing new for her. And she said it’s one reason why she continued to improve.
“I had been playing up for a while,” she said. “I always played with older kids. They had more experience, and I learned from it. What I learned was it doesn’t matter how old or how big you are. I’d play well and they wouldn’t know I was younger, and they’d tell me to keep playing and that made me feel good.”
Fletcher was on the bench for her first varsity game as a freshman, but she didn’t stay there long. Lee put her in the game in the first quarter, much to Fletcher’s surprise.
“I’ll never forget it,” she said. “It was against Romeo, and it was our home opener. I was nervous. I didn’t want to mess up.”
That nervousness and her coming off the bench didn’t last long. Soon she was in the starting lineup gaining more confidence as the season progressed.
As a sophomore she was one of the top players in the Detroit area, as she averaged 25 points and 12 rebounds per game. That fine season placed her in at least one publication’s 2015-16 preseason top 25 (State Champs! ranked her No. 14), and soon everyone who followed the sport knew about her.
Fletcher averaged 23 points, 10 rebounds, 9.4 assists and 5.5 steals as Cousino (23-4) made its run on the way to eventually defeating Detroit Martin Luther King, 67-65, in the Class A Final to complete a remarkable season for the Patriots and Fletcher.
Fletcher saved her best for last, as she had 37 points, nine rebounds and five assists in the Semifinal (a 60-45 win over Hudsonville), and had 27 points, eight rebounds and five assists against King.
“I love to compete,” she said. “I love the friendships. I’ve met a lot of people playing basketball. Sports teaches you discipline, in the way you live life. Sports has a way of bringing people together.”
Fletcher turned down a number of other college scholarship offers, including one from University of Michigan, to sign with Georgia Tech. She has a 3.7 grade-point average and plans on majoring in public policy and working for the U.S. Government.
“I also have aspirations of playing professionally,” she said. “Overseas or in the WNBA.”
Tom Markowski is a columnist and directs website coverage for the State Champs! Sports Network. He previously covered primarily high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Kierra Fletcher (3) poses for a photo with her teammates after Warren Cousino won last season’s Class A championship. (Middle) Fletcher brings the ball up the court during her team’s Semifinal win over Hudsonville.
Goodrich Wins Matchup of Undefeated Contenders to Earn Chance to Finish Unbeaten
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
March 20, 2026
EAST LANSING – Goodrich hopes to become the next Division 2 champion Saturday at Breslin Center.
But in the meantime, the Martians can lay claim to being the state’s last unbeaten team heading into the final day of the season.
In a matchup of 27-0 teams, Goodrich earned the right to play for its first championship since winning the second of back-to-back crowns in 2013, claiming a 47-41 win over Grand Rapids South Christian in a Friday Semifinal.
Goodrich (28-0) will try to dethrone 2025 champion Tecumseh, which eliminated Goodrich in last year’s tournament, at 6:45 p.m. Saturday.
The Martians made it to Breslin Center undefeated largely because of its stout defense all season, and that was on display against South Christian.
“We were able to do what we’re looking to do every game,” Goodrich head coach Jason Gray said. “And our defense really showed up tonight. They hit a couple of big 3s late against us, but in general, that’s about as good of a job as you can do defending that team.”
The Martians limited South Christian to 16 of 42 shooting from the field, but seven of those field goals came during the first quarter.
Over the last three, Goodrich held the Sailors to 9 of 29 shooting. For the game, South Christian was 3 of 18 from 3-point range.
“Pressure defense pushed us out a little bit,” Sailors head coach Erika Brown said. “We couldn’t get into our normal dribble-drive where we could turn the corner and get into the paint tonight. We weren’t seeing the post as well as we probably could have.”
Goodrich dominated the second quarter and built a big lead during the fourth before holding off a late South Christian comeback.
Leading 36-28 going into the fourth quarter, Goodrich stretched the margin to 14 at 43-29 with 4:59 remaining on a 3-pointer by senior Kayla Hairston.
The Sailors had an answer though, reeling off nine straight points to cut its deficit to 43-37 with 3:13 remaining. The last six points of that run came courtesy of senior Lizzie Woithuis, who drained back-to-back 3-pointers.
“We just knew what we had to do,” Hairston said. “They went on a little run, but that didn’t change our mindset. They didn’t make us rattled. They didn’t stress us out. We just had to play our style no matter what.”
Hairston delivered maybe the biggest rebound of the game after missing two free throws with 58.3 seconds left and Goodrich up 44-39.
After the second miss, she tracked down the rebound near the baseline and got the ball out to junior teammate Baylor Lauinger, who was fouled and hit two free throws with 48.4 seconds remaining to make the lead seven.
Goodrich held firm defensively and hit one more free throw to hold off South Christian.
Hairston scored 17 points, and Lauinger added 11 points for Goodrich.
Goodrich held a 28-19 lead at halftime after a 10-2 run. It was a different story to start the third quarter, as South Christian went on a 7-0 run to cut its deficit to 31-28.
But the Martians scored the last five points of the third quarter and had too much of a cushion for South Christian to overcome.
Sophia Prins, a four-year varsity standout, scored 13 points to lead the Sailors and finish off a tremendous high school career.
“Overall, we can’t let this one game define us,” Prins said. “We have to look back at how good we performed every single game up to this point of the whole season.”
PHOTOS (Top) Goodrich’s Kayla Hairston splits a pair of South Christian defenders driving to the hoop Friday. (Middle) The Martians’ Sydney Place (11) and Sailors’ Sophia Prins watch Place’s shot fall as the official signals a 3-pointer. (Photos by Keionna Banks and John Castine/Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)