Class B: One More for Lakeshore

March 23, 2012

EAST LANSING – Stevensville Lakeshore coach Sean Schroeder had talked with his team this season about taking another step as a program.

He echoed that with a little more fire at halftime of Friday’s Class B Semifinal at the Breslin Center.

The Lancers led by three with just 16 minutes separating them from the first championship game berth in school history. But Muskegon Heights sophomore Mike Davis had scored 15 points and looked more than capable of carrying his team back to a second-straight Final.

“(No.) 24 had to stop scoring. He was keeping them in the game,” Lakeshore senior guard Loren Johnson said. “The effort was lacking. We really pride ourselves in defense, and we were really showing a lack of effort on the court.”

Now the Lancers have another big thing in which to take pride as well – and will be back at Breslin one more time this weekend.

Lakeshore got tighter on defense and bigger on offense and pulled away from Muskegon Heights for a 59-46 win. The No. 7 Lancers (24-2) will play No. 1 Lansing Sexton in the Final at 8 p.m. Saturday.

Lakeshore last played in a Semifinal in 2007, when it lost 49-42 to Country Day. Its other Semifinals were in 1995 and 1981.

“We really never could get over this hump. As a program and as a school, it’s something we really talked about, how nice it would be to at least get to the final game,” Schroeder said. “I don’t think our kids came here (in 2007) expecting to win, just ‘Oh my gosh, we made it here. It’s awesome.’ And that’s common for high school kids. But one of the things we talked about after Tuesday night was let’s get there and win.”

And that meant stopping Davis.

The 6-foot-4 sophomore forward entered the week averaging 10.5 points per game, but surpassed that 50 seconds into the second quarter. And Heights (20-7) needed that effort – it found out Wednesday that leading scorer Juwon Martin (15.8 ppg) would miss the Semifinal after suffering an injury Tuesday.

“It was a devastating blow, but we’re a no-excuse team. That’s been our motto all year,” Muskegon Heights coach Keith Guy said. “We just kept fighting at it.”

On the other bench, Schroeder more or less subbed in if a defender let Davis take a shot. He eventually settled on senior forward Jordan Avery as his stopper, and it paid off – Davis got far fewer looks, and scored only six points during the second half.

The Lancers, meanwhile, went ahead 37-35 with 5:08 to go in the third quarter and then launched a 16-3 run that Heights couldn’t match.

“We had to find different ways to try to get me open. In the first half I was just playing, trying to get our offense going. In the second half … they pretty much almost stopped me,” Davis said.

“(But) I learned that anything I put my mind to I can do it, especially on the basketball court where I think I’m one of the best people on the court at any time.”

Davis did finish with 21 points total. Senior Ryan Avery led Lakeshore with 20, while Johnson had 13 and senior center Alex Klunder had 10.

Click for box score or to watch the game and press conferences at MHSAA.tv.

PHOTO: Lakeshore junior Keith Brushwyler battles for the ball during Friday's Semifinal. (Photo courtesy of Terry McNamara Photography.) 

Bedford Boys Hoops Off to Best Start in Decade Under Alum Bollin

By Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com

January 24, 2023

TEMPERANCE – The Bedford Mules are kicking up a special boys basketball season in southeast Michigan.

Southeast & BorderTemperance Bedford is off to a 10-1 start, the best for the school in a decade. Third-year coach Jordan Bollin is happy to bring a winner to his alma mater.

“Bedford has had good teams here and there and good players and coaches, but it never seemed to be anything that was sustained,” Bollin said. “I knew it was going to be a challenge.”

Bollin played varsity basketball at Bedford, graduating in 2006. He went into coaching almost immediately after high school and was named head coach at Dundee in 2015. After 68 wins in five seasons, Bollin was named head coach at Bedford.

“I talked it over with my wife, with the athletic director, with (assistant coach) Mark Hubbard,” Bollin said. “I always, in the back of my mind, thought that I would want to come back to Bedford and coach one day. I wanted to do it while I was still relatively a young coach who still had the passion for all of this. It’s the right time.

“I felt like, leaving Dundee, I had an opportunity to build something myself.”

Wrestling has been the winter sports king at Bedford for decades as the Mules spent years at the top of Class A/Division 1 wrestling circles. The boys basketball team has enjoyed its moments, such as a three-year span when it went 18-6, 18-5 and 14-8 across 2012-2014, but there have been down years, too. Various coaches have tried their hand at the helm, including former NBA player Dennis Hopson.

Bollin himself played for coach Bill Ryan, who led the boys team for seven years but has found ultra-success with Bedford’s girls basketball program.

Bollin knew that when he took over the varsity, he wanted to incorporate the entire program.

“No program is one coach,” he said.

He brought multiple assistants with him from Dundee, including longtime Monroe County coach Hubbard, a Bedford graduate, and former head coach in the county himself. The two have formed a bond.

“We talk every day on the phone before practice,” Bollin said. “We go to lunch once or twice a week. He’s a mentor and someone I talk to all the time.”

Bedford has posted wins over a variety of teams this season, from Southeastern Conference teams like Dexter and Monroe to Ottawa Lake Whiteford, Adrian Lenawee Christian and Stockbridge. Ten of the Mules’ final 11 games are against SEC schools, including two against 8-3 Saline.

Bedford coach Jordan Bollin.Bollin knows the toughest is yet to come.

“We get Ann Arbor Huron at home,” he said. “We lost to them by three on the road. We had the ball, down two in the final seconds and had the ball and were called for a travel. It was close.”

Six-foot-7 Andrew Hollinger is the team’s top scorer and rebounder. Four years ago, he played five games on the varsity, then was a starter in Bollin’s first season. He’s now closing in on 1,000 career points and is one of the best rebounders in southeast Michigan.

“He’s phenomenal,” Bollin said. “He plays so hard, and he’s a great kid. He’s a 4.0 student and very humble. You’ll never hear him talk about himself; it’s always about the team.”

While he’s proven to be a great scorer and free throw shooter this season, Hollinger is also a relentless rebounder.

“I’ve always been one of the tallest out on the court, so I know that I can really use that to my advantage in order to rebound,” he said. “Once the shot goes up, I try to chase down the ball or box someone out in order to give my team the chance to get the ball back.”

Bollin said Hollinger’s intensity shows.

“I use him as an example to the other kids all of the time,” Bollin said.

Twice this season Hollinger has set the school record for most consecutive free throws made in a game. He went 15-for-15 once and 16-for-16 another time. Hollinger averaged a double-double last year at 18.2 points and 10.8 rebounds and has topped those numbers through 11 games this season.

Hollinger brings the Mules up court.Hollinger is one of eight seniors on the roster. Like Bollin, he’s a homegrown talent, having made his way up from the Bedford Community Education program in the fourth grade to middle school, JV and varsity.

“I fell in love with basketball when I played in the local community ed program,” he said.

Hollinger said all of the seniors had a feeling this was going to be a great season.

“I think the success from our team comes from how hard we play every game and how much experience we have,” he said. “We knew coming into the season that we were in pretty much every game the season before and just had to find a way to start winning games.”

Bedford won six games during the COVID-19 shortened 2020-21 season and four a year ago – losing several games that came down to the final minute. Bollin has matched the win total in those first two years at Bedford in two months.

Ironically, Bollin said, it was the 2020-21 season during which most of this year’s seniors learned to play varsity basketball.

“We had so many games where we had players out for COVID that we had to bring a lot of them up to the varsity to play,” he said. “A lot of the seniors this year got a ton of playing time that year.”

The other current seniors include Griffin Wolf, Tommy Huss, Jimmy Fackelman, Simon Eighmey, Caleb Kochendoerfer, Evan Campbell, and Leo Wagenhauser. They are complimented by a couple sophomores and juniors plus freshman Carsen Behnke.

Hollinger is hopeful the first-half success will continue.

“We all believed in each other in the offseason, and that belief still continues through the start of the season,” he said, deflecting any attention from himself. “I love how basketball is a team game and how you need the whole team to be playing hard in order to win. It’s not just about one person, but it’s about everyone.”

Bollin said he could sense this summer that this season had the makings of being something special.

“I thought we’d have a nice season, but, no, I wasn’t expecting 10-1,” he said. “But, in the summer, I knew when everyone was there and together, we were tough to beat.”

Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.

PHOTOS (Top) Bedford’s Andrew Hollinger works for an opening while surrounded by Monroe defenders last season. (Middle) Bedford boys basketball coach Jordan Bollin. (Below) Hollinger brings the Mules up court during a 63-43 win Friday. (Action photos by Tom Hawley and Mike Doughty, respectively, and courtesy of the Monroe News.)