Still #1: Heritage Lands 2nd Straight Title
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
March 23, 2019
GRAND RAPIDS – Not often is the reigning champion the hunter and not the hunted. But that’s how the Saginaw Heritage girls basketball approached this season.
With the graduation of some key members from the 2018 Class A title team, the Hawks felt they were being overlooked.
On Saturday, they re-established themselves as the top team among the state’s largest schools, now classified as Division 1.
Behind a stifling defense, Heritage earned a second straight MHSAA title by defeating top-ranked Southfield Arts & Technology 55-40 at Van Noord Arena on the campus of Calvin College.
“If anything, we kind of felt underestimated, like a lot of people didn’t think we were going to get right back,” Heritage senior Shine Strickland-Gills said. “We lost two players, and they scored a lot … and it didn’t look like we had much coming in through the tunnel after them, so they didn’t really think we were going to go back again. But we wanted to prove them all wrong, and our whole thing was to stick together. Our end goal, everybody’s end goal, was to play in the last game and win. We just knew what we had to do, and we made sure that got done.”
It was the third MHSAA championship for the Hawks (25-2), and it seemed fitting it was this senior class that spearheaded these last two. Strickland-Gills and classmates Moira Joiner and Mallory McCartney have been playing together for more than a decade, and had predicted they could accomplish this before they got into high school.
“They were eighth graders the last time we were in a Final Four, and they all cut school and came down to the Breslin Center and watched Heritage,” Hawks coach Vonnie DeLong said. “We lost that day, and they told me that day, ‘We’re getting back here and we’re winning it, Coach.’ They made good on their promise to me.”
Heritage looked like a team that knew it was supposed to be playing in Saturday’s moment, taking control early and remaining calm and composed while clinically finishing it off.
The Hawks were hitting 50 percent of their 3-pointers at one point in the third quarter, and finished the game with 19 assists on 20 made baskets. Joiner led the way with 17 points, eight rebounds and eight assists, nearly matching the triple double she had in Friday’s Semifinal against Wayne Memorial. Strickland-Gills added 16 points, eight rebounds, six assists and six blocks, while junior Keyonie Champion had 12 points. McCartney added seven points, five rebounds and five assists.
“Having them be seniors, not just seniors, but having been in this game before – having been in these big games is huge,” DeLong said. “Today they just knew. I talked to them this morning and told them, ‘This is it, last time you’re ever going to play together – you're going to keep playing, but not together – and this is the last chance you got. I’m going to tell you right now, last game senior year, if you can go out a winner, that’s absolutely the way you want to go.’”
While Heritage didn’t have much trouble settling in, the Hawks made it hard for the Warriors (24-2) to do so, especially on the offensive end. They played zone and closed down on everything in the paint, forcing Southfield A&T into its worst offensive performance of the season.
It was only the second time all year the Warriors – who shot 16 of 47 (34 percent) from the field – were held below 50 points. The other time was a 45-43 loss to Heritage in the second game of the season.
“They were in a zone, and the zone packed it in a little bit, and we were struggling to find some gaps to attack,” Southfield A&T coach Michele Marshall said. “We play inside-out, and it just appeared the gaps were not there. If they were, when we tried to attack, we were just a little bit hesitant.”
Zone isn’t the typical defensive setup for Heritage, but DeLong said possible fatigue from the previous night’s Semifinal and the importance of keeping Strickland-Gills out of foul trouble pushed her to make the change.
“I don’t think we’ve played a full game of zone all year this year,” DeLong said. “We played it a couple times last year, and it worked in the Final. We talked about it last night, watched some film today and did some walkthrough at a gym this morning. Most of them have played our zone enough, so they know what to do, but a couple of our kids are a little shaky. But we got them through, and it worked.”
The Warriors shot 6 of 21 (28.6 percent) in the first half, and just 2 of 8 (25 percent) in the second quarter. They played more than six minutes of the second quarter without star forward Alexis Johnson, who was sidelined with three fouls.
Heritage was able to take advantage during that span, stretching its lead to 11 points by halftime and never looking back.
Soleil Barnes led Southfield A&T with 14 points, while Cheyenne McEvans had 13.
PHOTOS: (Top) Heritage’s Mallory McCartney looks for open teammates Saturday during the Division 1 Final. (Middle) A&T’s Cheyenne McEvans directs her team’s offense.
Significance of Historic Run, Relationships Formed Live On for 1973 Unity Champs
By
Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com
August 7, 2026
It has been more than five decades, but Kim Hansen and Marcia (Visser) Beutel can still recall certain moments from a historic night in mid-December when their Hudsonville Unity Christian girls basketball team accomplished a tremendous feat.
On Dec. 15, 1973, at East Kentwood High School, the teammates helped the Crusaders win the first MHSAA Girls Basketball Finals championship in Class B.
Unity Christian defeated Saginaw MacArthur 49-45 before a crowd of 1,000.
“i just remember the team, the bus ride out there, and I remember just how excited we were to be together and what we had accomplished as a group,” Hansen said. “Our parents and friends were such big supporters through the whole process, and when I think back I see faces of pure joy.”
A total of 629 schools participated in that first tournament, which like now lasted three weeks and was divided into four classifications.
Cindy Masselink scored 17 points and Deb Aukeman added 16 points to lead the Crusaders to the championship win.
“For us, it was an excitingly significant day because we had been working hard throughout the season, and we, as women, could be the first winners of a state championship for our school and the state,” Beutel said. “A lot of us had been playing together since the sixth grade, and that camaraderie, that friendship, that teamwork and the work we had put in was going to end with a state championship.
“We were very blessed to be there, and we also knew that we were pioneers and trailblazers in the game.”
The Crusaders consisted of 11 girls, three managers and head coach Susan Contant.
An interesting sidenote from the Class B title game: As the home team, Unity Christian was to wear white uniforms. But the Crusaders didn’t own those.
“There were limited resources for women's sports back then so we had to wear the boys uniforms for the state championship,” Beutel said. “They didn't fit well so we had to wear T-shirts underneath them.”
One thing the 1973 squad possessed was size, which proved to be a benefit as the 3-point shot didn’t yet exist.
“We took each tournament game as it came to us and just kind of did our thing,” Hansen said. “I look back at our pictures, and we were huge. We had a starting five of 6-foot plus, and we were a big team. That definitely worked in our favor, and I really don't think that we were going to be denied.”
Beutel and Hansen, both 69, are organizing a night to recognize this special group of women.
It will take place Dec. 11 during a Unity Christian girls and boys varsity game night.
“We are all much older and lives have happened and we are in different places, but I’m hoping that many of the teammates will come back for that,” Hasen said. “I know our head coach and her husband are going to come back for that, and I think that is just amazing. I haven't seen Sue since 1973.
“I got to see some of my teammates when we were recognized at Central Michigan for the 30-year anniversary, and I’m looking forward to seeing who is going to be able to make it and hoping that many do.”
Beutel lives in Toronto with her husband, Robert. She recently visited her old high school.
“They had a list of all the state championships on the wall, and the first one was us,” she said. “That was very emotional for me to see that, to see that recognition.”
Beutel met her husband at the University of Michigan, and they had three kids. One of their daughters, Sophie, played Division I basketball at Brown.
Beutel moved to Toronto in 1987 and coached basketball in a recreational league while helping grow the game. She was president of the Toronto Basketball Association, which has surged to 1,000 athletes.
The country needed to push for basketball representation and now has the NBA’s Toronto Raptors and the Toronto Tempo, currently playing its inaugural season in the WNBA.
“Back then it was a hockey country, so I had to search for basketball in Toronto,” Beutel said. “I got involved in it and expanded it on the girls side and always coached my kids.”
Now retired after a career as a health care executive, Beutel and her husband love adventures and have traveled to several countries. “There is so much more to experience in life,” she said.
While she stays active by playing tennis, cycling and kayaking, Beutel also plays clarinet in a band and volunteers at a cancer support group as a peer counselor after enduring two bouts of breast cancer.
After high school, Hansen played four years of basketball at Grand Valley State University before being drafted by the San Francisco Pioneers of the Women’s Professional Basketball League.
She played there one season before being traded to the Chicago Hustle. She also spent time with the Minnesota Fillies before the league went bankrupt and disbanded in 1981.
“I think I made $7,000 for my salary and the season was very short, but it was such an amazing experience and San Francisco was a very good franchise,” Hansen said. “They had good ownership and we flew all over the place and stayed in really nice hotels. They had a good practice facility, and we were treated really well.”
Prior to a game scheduled in Chicago on March 21, 1981, Hansen and her Fillies teammates walked off the court before the starting lineups were announced in a protest over unpaid salaries.
“We planned to do our warm-up, go back to the locker room and then get back in vans and drive back to Minnesota because we weren’t getting paid,” Hansen said. “That was our way of showing that we were not happy with ownership and the only way that we could make a stand.”
Despite the disbanding of the league, Hansen said lifelong relationships were formed.
“The beauty of playing sports is relationships, and even relationships that we developed at Unity are still so strong, and relationships I developed while playing pro ball are still very active and to me that is the beauty of playing sports,” she said.
After the WPBL, Hansen went to graduate school at Lamar University in Texas and eventually became an educator and coach at several colleges and high schools, including Wichita State and North Central College (Ill.).
Her final stop was Cleveland Heights High School, where she coached and taught physical education and health. She lives in Kirtland, Ohio, and retired from teaching and coaching in 2024 although she still works part-time in the transportation department.
“I love coaching and I always loved practice,” Hansen said. “I just finished working with four seventh-grade boys and helping them with fundamentals and skills. I just enjoy that part of it so much.”
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PHOTOS (Top) The 1973 Unity Christian girls basketball team poses for a team photo with its championship trophy; Kim Hansen (20) and Marcia Beutel (12) then and now. (Middle) Unity coach Susan Contant holds the championship trophy surrounded by her players after the clinching victory. (Below) Hansen stands for a photo with her San Francisco Pioneers teammates during the 1979-80 season. (Photos provided by Kim Hansen and Marcia Beutel.)