High 5s - 2/14/12
February 13, 2012
Every Tuesday, Second Half honors 2-4 athletes and a team for its accomplishments during the current season.
Have a suggestion for a future High 5? Please offer your suggestions by e-mail to [email protected]. Candidates often will have accomplished great things on the field of play -- but also will be recognized for other less obvious contributions to their teams, schools or the mission of high school athletics as a whole.
Daisy Ference
Northville freshman
Gymnastics
Ference, only a 14-year-old freshman, came into the Feb. 4 Canton Invitational at least somewhat under the radar – and left as a favorite to win the MHSAA Division 1 individual championship next month. Ference won the Division 1 competition at Canton with an all-around score for 37.925. Earlier this season, according to a Birmingham Observer & Eccentric report, Ference set Northville’s school bars record with a 9.8.
The Mustangs finish the regular season with a meet tonight at Livonia Churchill and their league championship meet Saturday.
“I love my team, and I want to do well for them. I am motivated by positive encouragement and winning.”
Up next: Ference obviously has a few years to decide what she’ll pursue after high school. But she does hope to continue competing. “I am very determined and ambitious, but my final destination has yet to be determined,” she said. “Gymnastics will always be a part of my life, and hopefully a part of my career.”
I learned the most about gymnastics from: “My high school coach is Erin McWatt, and my main club coach, from Michigan Elite Gymnastics Academy, is Kim Tanskanen. I have been taught by the most talented and dedicated coaches, and I appreciate their love and dedication. They taught me to work hard, and success will follow. They taught me dedication and hard work pays off.”
Chris Hass
Pellston senior
Basketball
Hass, a 6-foot-5 point guard, is averaging 30.9 points per game this season and has scored 2,241 total during his four-year high school varsity career. His points total is 10th-best in MHSAA history and just 600 shy of the record set by Mio's Jay Smith from 1976-79. He's also averaging 8.5 rebounds and six assists per game. Pellston is 14-1 and ranked No. 3 in Class D, with a chance to avenge its only loss Wednesday in a rematch with No. 1 Bellaire. Hass has signed with Bucknell.
"I try to get as many assists as I can now. But for my team to be successful, I need to score. We have very talented ball players on this team. But that's one of my roles."
Up next: "One thing I was looking at college for wasn't just the next four years of life, but the rest of my life. If I don't go to the next (basketball) level after college, I'll have an education that will allow me to get an outstanding job anywhere. I'm going into either mechanical engineering or business management."
I learned the most about basketball from: "Definitely my father (Cliff, also his high school coach). He's always pushing me to be better than who I am. I think a lot of kids who are good when they're young, they're just told how good they are. My dad always kept pushing me to work on this, work on other things. ... He always keeps pushing me to be better than I am right now."
I look up to: "I've always wanted to be like Jesus Christ. He'd be my main one, then my dad and my sister (Stephanie, who formerly held the MHSAA girls basketball record for career points).
Shelby wrestling
Just because Shelby moved down into Division 4 for wrestling this season doesn’t meant its road to the MHSAA Finals got easier. Case in point: last week’s District matchup against Hesperia, which had reached the Quarterfinals 11 straight seasons.
But thanks to the Tigers 36-26 win, it won’t be 12. Shelby, ranked No. 4 entering the postseason, got past a major obstacle in downing the No. 3 Panthers, who also had reached the Division 4 championship match three of the last five seasons.
Shelby is seeking its first MHSAA team championship since 1972, but long has been considered a power in the southwestern corner of the state. The Tigers advanced to the Division 3 Quarterfinals in 2009 and lost in Regional Finals the last two seasons and in 2007 – twice by just two points during that time.
Shelby is the only ranked team at its Regional on Wednesday at Blanchard Montabella. The Tigers will face Traverse City St. Francis, and with a win either Sanford-Meridian or Leroy Pine River in the Regional Final.
The Tigers also advanced nine wrestlers from Saturday’ individual District at Hesperia: Junior Nick Bantien (119, fourth place), sophomore David Guerra (125, third), senior Jordan White (135, second), senior Trevor Dezwaan (140, second), senior Houston Jones (145, fourth), senior Dillon Sibley (152, fourth), senior Mason Courtright (171, first), junior Dillion Ankney (215, first) and junior Austin Felt (103, first).
Benton Harbor Aims to Add to Legacy
March 23, 2018
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – Benton Harbor is wearing the weight of history, with the last name of Don Farnum across the chests of the team’s warm-up T-shirts.
But this season’s Tigers have been aiming to add to their school’s long legacy of boys basketball success – and become its first MHSAA champion in the sport since Farnum led the team to back-to-back titles in 1964 and 1965.
Benton Harbor earned another championship opportunity Friday at the Breslin Center with a 60-49 Class B Semifinal win over River Rouge.
The victory sent the Tigers back to the title game for the 11th time and first since 2014.
“It’s a lot of weight, but we don’t let it get to our heads,” Benton Harbor senior guard Dennie Brown said. “We know this is a great group. We’ve had chemistry since back in middle school. So we knew coming into the season it would be something magical if we’d play the way we’ve been playing our whole lives.
“So it’s not much weight, just motivation.”
Benton Harbor will face Grand Rapids Catholic Central in Saturday’s 6:45 p.m. finale.
The Tigers (26-1) fell to New Haven 78-49 during last season’s Semifinals, as the Rockets went on to win their first Class B title.
A number of Benton Harbor’s players are the same this time around, but this is a new team.
Senior guards Shawn Hopkins (18 points, 13 rebounds) and Elijah Baxter (17 points) and sophomore forward Carlos Johnson (nine points, nine rebounds, six blocks) also started last season and set the tone Friday.
“It’s been a dream season. We’ve gone 27-1, and we had a bad half against Hazel Park – we should be undefeated,” said Benton Harbor coach Corey Sterling, noting his team’s lone loss 77-70 to the Class A Vikings. “But we want that ring tomorrow.
“This senior group earned it. They worked hard in the offseason. We lost last year … and they did everything I asked them to do. And they’re great character kids off the court with high GPAs; I’m so proud of them.”
Facing 14-time champ River Rouge, Benton Harbor saw another team both rich in history and also back at the Semifinals for the second straight season. But Rouge brought only one returning starter to East Lansing.
“It was a great experience to be here, especially as I have a young team,” River Rouge coach Mark White said. “After coming here last year and losing a lot of key players, just the magnitude of experiences, it was great for us. It was great for us, a great achievement to make it here, to play a really good team.”
White then added: “I’m not in the excuse-making business, but I’m looking forward to our guys being seniors.”
White’s young squad kept up with Sterling’s veterans for a half, and the score was deadlocked 25-25 at the break. But starting with a Johnson basket with 2:49 to play in the third quarter, the Tigers put together an 11-4 run to run out the quarter with a 10-point lead. The advantage got as large as 14 but no smaller than eight the rest of the way.
Junior guard Nigel Colvin led River Rouge (23-2) with 15 points, six rebounds and three steals while coming off the bench. Junior guard Donovan Freeman added 12 points, and freshman forward Legend Geeter added eight points and nine rebounds in 14 minutes of sub time.
Brown added eight points and four assists for the Tigers, and senior guard Devan Nichols had six points and five rebounds as the starting five scored all but two of the team’s points.
The “Farnum Boyz” shirts worn by the Tigers are more a dedication to their home court, the Don Farnum Gymnasium, than to the man himself. But a first championship in more than a half century surely would bring a lot of pride to the building and the many who have shined playing in it.
“Coming in, we just knew we had to stay focused,” Baxter said. “We have a goal, and we’ve had this goal since we were young. Coming into this game, we wanted to prove a point we didn’t prove last year.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Benton Harbor’s Carlos Johnson gets past three defenders on the way to the basket Friday. (Middle) Johnson (11) gets a hand up as River Rouge’s Nigel Colvin drives.