Southwest Schools Begin League Shuffle
By
Wes Morgan
Special for MHSAA.com
December 6, 2016
Just when it seemed that the waters had calmed concerning conference realignment in Southwest Michigan, two area leagues are expected to lose a chunk of their respective memberships with the berth of a new alliance.
It was announced in June that Bronson would be leaving the Berrien-Cass-St. Joseph League at the end of the 2016-17 school year to join the Big 8 Conference. The BCS began in 2014.
Now, all three St. Joseph County schools — Centreville, Mendon and White Pigeon — along with Cass County seat Cassopolis, are expected to exit the BCS this year as well. Those schools are joining Southwestern Athletic Conference defectors Bangor, Bloomingdale, Eau Claire, Hartford, Decatur and Marcellus to form the Southwest 10 Conference.
Seven of the 10 school districts have already voted in favor of the new league, with the last three unnamed schools expected to vote the same way later this month.
Once again, football was a driving force, though several other factors sparked the initial discussions back in August. It was important for Centreville, Mendon and White Pigeon to stick together after a long run dating back to the St. Joseph Valley League.
Competitive fairness and logistics were two other key concerns.
“(The SAC schools) came into this meeting stating the No. 1 goal is to not have a mega conference,” Mendon co-athletic director Glen Samson said. “They tried to get us to strike while the iron is hot. At the same time they are discussing this with us, the superintendents of the SAC and the BCS wanted us to all get together and form an even larger league, like 35 schools.
“We’ve just not had a whole lot of luck with this large conglomerate. It’s not really a league. You can see people voting on party lines, so to speak.”
A big obstacle in the BCS was football scheduling. The BCS did not make it mandatory that teams play cross-divisional games, which left some schools in the lurch when it came to filling out a nine-game schedule.
For instance, Mendon had to drive to the Upper Peninsula in Week 9 to play Manistique after finding no takers from similar-sized schools and with no desire of its own to compete against the likes of Class B programs up to three times a year.
Current BCS schools like Berrien Springs, Buchanan, Comstock and Parchment — all with about 450 students or more — are twice the size of schools like Mendon (203) and Cassopolis (278).
“This idea came across our table, so we took a look at it,” Samson said. “The schools involved want to keep it to 10 teams. The more we got into it, the more it made sense.
“When Bronson left, it left us with four teams in our division in football. All that guaranteed Mendon, Centreville and Cass were three games. We’re sitting here with three games, and we have to find six and we have to now play two or three Class B schools to fill out a schedule in a league of 18 teams. This is not right.”
A 10-team league solves that issue and makes for easier organization of all other sports. More often than not, Samson and Cassopolis athletic director Matt Brawley agreed, coaches didn’t even know what division their school was in as the groupings changed by sport.
“Scheduling and getting the bylaws in order,” are at the top of the priority list for Brawley. “Right now, things seem to be running pretty smoothly. We have a great group of athletic directors and superintendents working diligently.”
If all goes according to plan, schedules will take care of themselves in the Southwest 10 since most schools offer the same sports. There are five schools that offer soccer with a sixth considering adding it for next season. A positive byproduct would be less travel time.
“For Cass, logistically, our furthest drive (would be) 37 miles,” Brawley said. “Marcellus and Decatur are our next-door neighbors. It doesn’t make much sense not to play them (as is the case now).
“I’m very excited,” Brawley said of a new league without divisions. “What I’m most excited about is being in a league where you’ve got to (likely) win nine games to win the conference championship or go 17-1 or 16-2 in basketball. It holds a lot more weight. The BCS is a great bunch of people, but this opportunity makes the most sense for us.”
Wes Morgan has reported for the Kalamazoo Gazette, ESPN and ESPNChicago.com, 247Sports and Blue & Gold Illustrated over the last 12 years and is the publisher of JoeInsider.com. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Berrien, Cass, St. Joseph and Branch counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Centreville and Marcellus face off in a girls basketball nonleague matchup. (Middle) Mendon and Casspolis will bring their football rivalry to the new Southwest 10 Conference. (Photos courtesy of Wes Morgan.)
200 Wins Later, Lusk's 'Yes' Still Paying Off as Hanover-Horton Surges
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
February 3, 2026
Joe Lusk has had to be talked into coaching a couple of times.
But that hasn’t stopped him from being a winner.
The Hanover-Horton girls basketball coach picked up career victory No. 200 last week when the Comets improved to 12-1 with a victory over Homer. It’s the best start to the season for Hanover-Horton since girls basketball transitioned from a fall sport to winter two decades ago.
“He holds his girls accountable and wants to get the best out of each and every one of them,” said Comets athletic director Chris VanEpps. “We are very lucky to have him here at Hanover-Horton.”
Lusk’s career spans two Cascades Conference schools – his alma mater Michigan Center, and Hanover-Horton for the past five seasons. He was also on the bench at Michigan Center when the Cardinals enjoyed incredible success under coach Scott Furman.
Lusk’s story isn’t the typical one about a high school athlete growing up wanting to be a coach. The Consumers Energy retiree, in fact, never considered coaching basketball until his daughter Courtney came home one day and told him he was coaching her team.
“She was in the fifth grade,” Joe Lusk said. “She told me there was a tournament at Vandercook Lake, she was playing and I was going to coach. I told her no way.”
That no slowly turned into a yes.
After coaching the youth basketball team for several years, Lusk was asked by Furman to join his varsity staff.
“He probably asked me 20 times,” Lusk said. “I kept telling him no. Ten years later, I was still coaching.”
Courtney grew into a varsity player and Lusk became an assistant coach.
“The joke at our house was she was either going to be a good basketball player or she was going to be in therapy,” Lusk said. “She would come home after a tough game and say, ‘Is tonight a therapy night?’”
Not much therapy was needed. The Cardinals went through a remarkable run during which they reached the MHSAA Finals twice and Semifinals another season before Courtney graduated in 2006.
Joe Lusk remained an assistant but, in 2012, Furman died, shocking the Michigan Center community. The ultra-successful coach had won more than 350 games during his career. Lusk took over the job, although he had reservations about becoming head coach.
Over the next nine seasons those reservations were put to rest as the Cardinals won 149 games. In 2018, they went 23-3 and made a run to the Division 3 Semifinals.
Lusk’s last season at Michigan Center was 2020-21. In June 2021, he was hired at Hanover-Horton.
“They found out there was an opening at Hanover and my wife (Cindy) and Courtney put together my resume and sent it in,” Lusk said. “They told me they were doing it. They wouldn’t let me quit (coaching).”
He was hired.
“Having an experienced coach like Coach Lusk is very important for our program,” VanEpps said. “His consistency and effort to make things better, not just for his teams, but for Hanover-Horton in general, give our younger staff someone to model themselves after. As for the girls on his team, he is stern but fair, which is something that can be lost on our younger generations.”
As for his current team being 12-1, Lusk knows the Comets have difficult games coming up. The Comets face Michigan Center (12-2) on Wednesday, Brooklyn Columbia Central (9-2) in a Cascades Conference West game in two weeks and state-ranked Concord in a nonconference matchup. Hanover-Horton also is in a District with powerhouses like Jackson Lumen Christi and Grass Lake. If the Comets win the Cascades West, they will likely face Grass Lake in the conference title game.
“We know the second half of our schedule is loaded,” he said.
Through it all, basketball remains a family sport. Courtney is the Comets’ junior varsity coach. Cindy keeps the scorebook for every game, something she has done for years.
“We are a basketball family,” Lusk said. “If Cindy didn’t do what she does, I wouldn’t be here today. She does a lot of work. For our juniors program, she keeps track of everything, all of the kids, what their shirt sizes are. If I had to do all of that, I wouldn’t be doing it. She loves basketball.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a news and sports reporter at the Adrian Daily Telegram and the Monroe News for 30 years, including 10 years as city editor in Monroe. He's written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. He is now publisher and editor of The Blissfield Advance, a weekly newspaper. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Hanover-Horton girls basketball coach Joe Lusk monitors the action during a game this season. (Middle) Lila Hamisfar (1) puts up a shot against Homer. (Below) Lusk carries balloons celebrating his 200th win alongside Hanover-Horton teacher and basketball parent Courtney Toteff. (Top and middle photos by Hannah Tacy/JTV. Below photo courtesy of Cindy Lusk.)