Ford's Drive Ends With School's 1st Title
March 26, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – The final celebration of the 2015-16 Michigan high school basketball season started during the final seconds when a Detroit Henry Ford assistant coach slapped hands of everyone sitting on the bench.
After the buzzer, the crowd moved to the south end of the Breslin Center floor, before players and coaches arm in arm made their way upcourt to the opposite baseline and into position to receive the first MHSAA championship trophy in school history.
Saturday night’s Class B Final was guaranteed to produce a first-time winner in boys basketball. It ended up being the team that fell just one victory short the season before – from a school that had never won a title in any sport in Finals competition.
Henry Ford, runner-up in 2015, is champion in 2016 thanks to a 61-47 win over Stevensville Lakeshore, which like the Trojans entered the postseason unranked but more than topped that expectation.
“Ever since the loss, we’ve been preparing in the gym to get back here, and not just to get here but to win it,” Henry Ford senior guard James Towns said. “It took a lot of work to get back here. It’s almost like losing everything when you get back here and lose.
“This year they doubted us; nobody had us winning. We were the bottom of Class B, and we came up here and proved them wrong.”
Henry Ford became the 13th school from the prestigious Detroit Public School League to win an MHSAA boys basketball title, giving the league two in two seasons after Detroit Western International also won its first boys hoops championship in 2015, in Class A.
The Trojans (20-6) fell in last season’s Class B Final 85-68 to Wyoming Godwin Heights, another first-time champion at the time.
This trip, Henry Ford was faced with multiple styles, first charged with shutting down guard-driven Williamston in the Semifinal (which it did 70-48) and then matched against a Lakeshore team boasting 6-foot-11 senior Braden Burke and 6-7 junior Max Gaishin. The tallest players in Ford’s regular rotation were 6-4.
Burke and Gaishin both had four points as Lakeshore stayed within a point during the first quarter, trailing 11-10 at the break. But they were unable to have an effect during a second quarter that saw the Lancers make only 1 of 7 shots from the floor and turn the ball over five times as Ford went on a 16-3 run to open up a 14-point advantage by halftime.
Burke and Gaishin would still lead a Lakeshore run. Burke had seven points and Gaishin four during the third quarter as their team cut into Ford’s lead substantially. The Trojans led 34-28 with a quarter to play. Another Burke bucket made the margin six again at 36-30 with 7:17 left on the clock.
“It’s a shame we got ourselves down in the first half. I’m not sure we reacted as well as we needed to the physicality of the ballgame in the first half,” Lakeshore coach Sean Schroeder said. “The second half, I think we did. We were one or two plays from really getting ourselves back in it.
“We had the momentum. If we get a stop, cut it to four, maybe it gets more interesting.”
Instead, Ford hustled to create its breakaway moment after Lakeshore did just about everything possible to prevent it.
After Burke's basket, a 3-pointer by sophomore Deonta Ulmer pushed the Trojans’ lead back to nine. Towns stole the ball on Lakeshore’s ensuing possession and pushed it into the post, where Burke and Gaishin blocked consecutive shots.
But 6-3 junior Malik Harris came up with the ball after the second block and moved it to Towns, who found senior Jeremy Crawley in the corner for a back-breaking 3-pointer that pushed Ford’s advantage to 42-30.
“We gave up so much size all season. You can’t question the size of our hearts though,” Ford coach Kenneth Flowers said. “These guys play with so much passion, so much desire, and understand that the game is really won in the trenches. These guys always battle, always played against bigger guys, but they knew how to be tough down there.”
Burke, who scored a game-high 19 points, continued to battle and got the deficit back to seven with 1:48 to play. But nine of the game’s final 11 shots were made Trojans free throws.
Crawley scored 18 points, and Towns closed his high school career with 15 points and three assists. Senior forward Alston Hunter, who with Towns started on last year’s team, had 11 points, 10 rebounds and three steals. Ford outrebounded Lakeshore 30-19 and had 17 second-chance points.
Senior guard Logan Steffes added 10 points for Lakeshore, and Gaishin finished with nine points, five rebounds and two blocks.
The Lancers were playing in their second MHSAA Final and also finished Class B runner-up in 2012. They will graduate seven including four starters.
“When this class was growing up, we knew we had Braden and we knew we had Logan coming through,” Schroeder said. “But to see the development of some of these other kids, we had a tremendous senior class, a tremendous amount of leadership.
“A kid like Logan Steffes, who has put so much time and energy into this program. You saw at the end, he was trying to will us to win the game. He steals it, misses the shot, gets the ball back, misses. He wanted badly to win that game.”
The Boys Basketball Finals are presented by Sparrow Health System.
PHOTOS: (Top) Detroit Henry Ford players celebrate their first MHSAA championship in any sport Saturday. (Middle) The Trojans' James Towns soars as he prepares to launch.
Ribel's Return Sets Up TC Central for 2nd-Half Rebound, Postseason Push
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
January 19, 2024
Best of three.
That’s the perspective Traverse City Central’s varsity basketball team has as the Trojans travel to play undefeated Cadillac tonight. And really, they have the same vision for most of their Big North Conference opponents as they reach midseason.
Central has hopes of getting in two or more wins against those rivals with a third meeting likely coming during the postseason. Central also is hopeful of getting to play those conference and postseason games with their leading scorer Anthony Ribel healthy and in the line-up.
Ribel missed the first seven games this season with a foot injury, including an opening day 68-33 route by the Vikings on the Trojans’ court. He will be in the line-up this time – and the Trojans are a much more confident and experienced team than they were in the first meeting.
Cadillac is entering tonight 10-0 overall and 5-0 in the Big North. Central, 2-8 but coming off its highest-scoring game in 15 years (a 94-50 victory over Alpena), owns a 2-3 league record. But the Trojans haven’t given up winning the conference title just yet. Ribel’s injury occurred at practice just three days before the season opener, and since returning he has averaged 30 points per game.
“Cadillac beat us pretty bad,” second-year coach Ben Fischer acknowledged. “The guys are very motivated to show them how we play Trojans basketball.
“Anthony is a big addition – it goes without saying,” he continued. “We’re a much different team offensively and defensively than we were before.”
Last year, the 6-foot-3 Ribel broke the junior-season scoring record at Traverse City Central previously owned by Dan Majerle, who played 14 seasons in the NBA, made three all-star teams and helped the U.S. Olympic team to a bronze medal in 1988. Ribel scored more than 600 points and also eclipsed the 1,000-point career mark during his junior campaign.
Despite missing the first third of this season, Ribel has a shot at Majerle’s career scoring record of 1,388 points. He started this winter with 1,133 career points after joining the varsity as a freshman.
Ribel recalled how he struggled through Cadillac’s lopsided win in the season opener while sitting the bench. Cadillac dominated the inside game, and Ribel is confident that will change tonight.
“When you lose at home by that much, it is embarrassing,” Ribel noted. “We have a lot of extra motivation.
“We’re less worried about what they can get from outside — we’re more worried about what they can do inside,” he continued. “We just have to take over the paint the best we can.”
Ribel led the way with 25 points in the Alpena win. The Trojans also got contributions from Owen Ribel (20 points), Brendan Slack (12 points), EJ Maitland (10 points), Jaden Clark (10 points, five assists), Jack Potgieter (nine points, eight rebounds) and Ethan Rademacher (five assists).
“We’re starting to find our stride.” Fischer pointed out. “Guys are getting a lot more dialed into their roles. We have relied on a lot of guys who didn’t have much experience coming into the season. Now they know they can go out there and compete having played some really good teams already.”
Slack is averaging 11.2 points per game and Maitland is contributing 10.1. Potgieter and Anthony Ribel are collecting six rebounds per game. Maitland and Potgieter kick in more than two assists.
Owen Ribel, only a sophomore, is also making a big mark for the Trojans. He’s thrown down a few dunks and had the 20-point effort against Alpena.
Owen and Anthony are the sons of past Trojans standout Ryan Ribel, a key team member of the last Central team to win a Regional, back in 1996. As a junior that year, Ryan Ribel averaged 17.5 points per game.
This season’s potential District opener opponents include the Big North’s Gaylord, Alpena, Petoskey and Traverse City West. Marquette also is in the District. The Trojans have wins over Alpena and Petoskey and lost to Gaylord and West the first time around. Anthony Ribel’s second game back was against West. He scored 19 points, but the Titans prevailed 64-59 with some strong free throw shooting down the stretch. Cadillac is a possible Regional opponent.
Regardless of tonight’s outcome, the Trojans will look forward to every rematch that comes their way as they hope to win all of their best-of-three series – of even sweep them.
“We’ve got a really good group of young men who are hungry to compete,” Fischer said. “Our biggest goal is to win Districts and hopefully Regionals. We’re getting a little bit better every single day.”
Anthony Ribel agreed.
“My teammates were put in some uncomfortable positions to start the year,” he said. “I think it will benefit us for the rest of the season.
“Getting the chemistry back with each other is going to be important,” he continued. “We need to string some big games together with all of us healthy, and make a good run.”
Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Traverse City Central’s Anthony Ribel, left, gets to the basket during his first game this season, against Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern on Jan. 2. (Middle) Ribel elevates for a jumper. (Photos by Rick Sack, TC Rick Photo.)