Arthur Hill Books Return Trip to Finals
March 27, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – Saginaw Arthur Hill's run to this season's Class A championship game has been the result of strong on-court performances – but with a boost from a pair of behind-the-scenes conversations as well.
For the first meeting, coach Greg McMath invited all of his players except standouts Eric Davis and Brian Bowen, and told the other 10 how much more was needed from them for the Lumberjacks to contend for their third MHSAA title.
The second came during halftime of Friday’s Semifinal against Lansing Everett. Davis, a senior and this season’s Mr. Basketball runner-up, had scored 16 points to give Arthur Hill a three-point lead at the break. He told Bowen, arguably the top sophomore in the state, that the second half belonged to him.
Bowen scored 10 points over the final two quarters and four Lumberjacks scored at least 11 points total as they broke away for a 73-61 win over the Vikings at the Breslin Center.
“Coach said to go out there and have fun, and really there wasn’t too much to say,” said Davis, who will play next season at the University of Texas. “I talked to Brian, said big-time players make big-time plays. The first half was my half; this half will be your half. He’s the number one player in the country in my eyes, and I think he proved that in the second half.”
Arthur Hill will face top-ranked Detroit Western International in the noon Class A Final on Saturday. The No. 6 Lumberjacks (24-3) faced and fell to both this season, but have made significant strides over the last six weeks since suffering the last of their three defeats.
Davis finished with 20 points and six assists Friday and Bowen had 15 points, but they were matched by junior Billy Burton with 18 points and senior forward De’Quevion Johnson’s 11 points, nine rebounds and six assists.
Johnson had nine of his points and Burton his final 11 during the second half.
“If I was coaching against us, it would be to stop these two,” McMath said of Davis and Bowen. “I had a meeting with the other 10 guys on the team, with these guys not being there. I told them if we’re going to make a run and win a state championship, it’s going to be on you guys. (Davis and Bowen) get the press, and they deserve it. But that’s how much better we’ve gotten from the beginning of the season as a team.”
Everett led by at many as seven points while maintaining control for most of the first 13 minutes. But recalling disappointing third quarters in season-ending losses the last two seasons to rival Saginaw, McMath prepped his team this winter to make third-quarter runs.
The score Friday was last tied, 28-28, with 2:21 to go in the second quarter. From that point, Arthur Hill built a 13-point lead over the rest of the half and third quarter.
Eight points during that Lumberjacks run came on dunks as Arthur Hill sped up the pace and made extra passes to find open teammates cutting to the hoop. Ten of the team’s 16 fast-break points came during the second half.
“We did a poor job getting back on transition defense. On missed shots, sometimes we were going for too many steals in the backcourt, allowing dunks and not reacting on defense,” Everett coach Desmond Ferguson said. “It was a poor night for us defensively … and (defense) is what we hang our hat on.”
The No. 9 Vikings (24-3) can hang their hats on an improvement from 5-16 only a year ago. A sizable reason for the turnaround was the addition of senior center Trevor Manuel, who returned to Lansing after a year out of state and finished third in the Mr. Basketball voting. But three others scored in double figures Friday, and the strength of that supporting cast was as significant a reason behind this winter’s run.
The 6-foot-9 Manuel, who will continue at the University of Oregon, finished with 15 points and 16 rebounds. But junior guard Jamyrin Jackson was the team’s leading scorer with 16 points, senior guard Deshae Doll had 11 and junior guard Leandre Wright scored 10 and grabbed eight rebounds.
Click for the full box score and video from the press conference.
PHOTOS: (Top) Arthur Hill's’Willie Rodgers makes one of his three blocks during Friday’s Semifinal win over Lansing Everett. (Middle) The Lumberjacks’ Eric Davis works to get past Everett’s Leandre Wright.
Tiger Pride Returns at Muskegon Heights
February 3, 2016
By Tom Kendra
Special for Second Half
It’s hard to overstate the importance of basketball to a community like Muskegon Heights.
On one hand, a bunch of kids playing a game in a gym seems like a low priority, almost trivial in a town whose violent crime rates and percentage of residents living in poverty are among the highest in Michigan.
But on the other hand, the “Tiger Pride” that is on display each time Heights alumnus Dell Stewart and his team of 13 players take the court – and the returning crowd of community members who are getting back on the bandwagon as the wins continue to pile up – could provide the spark to create real change in this beleaguered West Michigan town.
“Basketball has always been a source of pride in this community,” said Stewart, a 1989 Muskegon Heights graduate, who is in his fourth year as the Tigers’ head coach.
“Basketball and all sports almost ended here completely four years ago, but we weathered the storm. We’re back. And we want to be a source of hope and pride.”
The school is now known as the Muskegon Heights Academy, a public charter school which replaced the debt-ridden Heights district in 2012, but the basketball standards are as high as they have ever been in a community which boasts six MHSAA championships – 1954, 1956, 1957, 1974, 1978 and 1979.
Heights has its sights set on another banner after taking its high-energy show on the road Saturday night and improving to 10-1 with a convincing 55-45 victory over perennial power and longtime rival Benton Harbor, which was ranked No. 10 in the state in Class B.
The Tigers beat the “downstate Tigers” on Saturday with their trademark full-court pressure defense and multiple offensive weapons – and now should finally get a spot in the Top 10 of this week’s Class C Associated Press state poll.
Underclassmen led the way in Heights’ big win, with junior point guard Antoine Jones scoring 18 points and junior Serinus Daniels and sophomore DeCarri Brown each grabbing 10 rebounds.
The energy of the team starts with the backcourt trio of Jones and his twin brother, Anthony, and senior captain Anthony Gordon. The starters inside are 6-foot-3 sophomore center Kieshon Watson and senior forward Deondre Wilson, but Daniels (a 6-6 junior) and Brown also see plenty of minutes.
“The thing I like about this team is that every game it seems like we have a different leading scorer,” said Stewart, who is assisted on the Tigers’ bench by his younger brother, Terry, a sharpshooter on the 1993 Heights team that lost to Saginaw Buena Vista in the Class B championship game. “We don’t have a lot of size, but we make up for that in different ways. We have the pieces of the puzzle to make a run.”
The win at Benton Harbor was just the latest impressive road victory for the Tigers, who turned some heads with big tournament wins in December over Southfield at Grand Rapids Ottawa Hills and Lansing Sexton at Battle Creek Central. Heights also handed host Kalamazoo Phoenix its first loss on Jan. 22.
Fans at home are starting to take notice – and come back.
When “the storm” Stewart referred to made landfall in 2012, a state-appointed emergency manager had taken over and there was uncertainty about whether the district would exist for the upcoming school year, let alone have a sports program.
That uncertainty led coach Keith Guy and high-profile players such as DeShaun Thrower (the state’s Mr. Basketball in 2014) and Joeviair Kennedy (now playing at Western Michigan University) to go to neighboring Muskegon High School – and many longtime Heights fans went with them. Soon, the traditional football school was now the place to be for basketball as well, as Thrower and Kennedy were joined by 6-9 Deyonta Davis (now at Michigan State) for an undefeated season and Class A championship in 2014.
Almost forgotten was the county’s traditional basketball power, Muskegon Heights.
Amidst all the new-found Big Reds’ basketball hoopla, Heights basketball picked up the pieces. With longtime administrators Glen Metcalf (athletic director) and Jerry Harris (faculty manager) leading the way, Heights was able to lure Stewart away from his job as head coach at Reeths-Puffer and back home to be head basketball coach and dean of students. His first order of business was to convince kids that they did not need to transfer to find basketball success.
Stewart’s words were backed up by results in 2014, when the Tigers made a run all the way to the Class C Semifinals at Michigan State’s Breslin Center, where they lost to Pewamo-Westphalia.
“I looked up in the stands and saw some of the old fans coming back and even people I hadn’t seen in 15 years, people who were starving to be part of something positive in Muskegon Heights,” said Stewart.
The problem has been that for every step up, there have been two steps back in terms of the Heights’ image.
One month after the Tigers made it to the Breslin in 2014, starting center Marquis Gresham was murdered in a drive-by shooting. Last fall, Heights was back in the news for the wrong reasons, when a home football game against Muskegon Catholic Central was cancelled after a shooting earlier that day.
Those incidents weigh heavy on all of the town’s residents, but they seem 1,000 miles away, at least briefly, when the Tigers work their magic on the basketball court.
One of those Tigers having plenty of fun is junior forward Keshawn Gresham, Marquis’s little brother, who is one of 10 underclassmen on the Tigers’ 13-player varsity roster.
As he laughs and jokes with his teammates, as a big throng of community residents cheer on in support, one fact is apparent:
Basketball is more than just a game in Muskegon Heights.
Tom Kendra worked 23 years at The Muskegon Chronicle, including five as assistant sports editor and the final six as sports editor through 2011. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Muskegon, Oceana, Mason, Lake, Oceola, Mecosta and Newaygo counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Muskegon Heights junior point guard Antoine Jones drives up the court during a 70-47 win at Muskegon Catholic Central on Jan. 26. (Middle) Muskegon Heights coach Dell Stewart congratulates junior forward Serinus Daniels after a block on one end and a bucket on the other during the win over MCC. (Below) Muskegon Heights' Joe Moore (right) and Serinus Daniels (left) defend Muskegon Catholic's Christian Martinez. (Photos by Tim Reilly.)