GRCC Earns 1st Final with Size, Surprise
March 23, 2018
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – Grand Rapids Catholic Central’s victory celebration had a championship feel Friday night.
The Cougars hadn’t locked down their first MHSAA boys basketball title yet. But it was impossible to not understand their heightened excitement.
Leading from start to finish, GRCC eliminated New Haven with a 69-53 Class B Semifinal win at the Breslin Center, in the process ending the reigning champion’s 52-game winning streak.
And if that was at all a surprise, how the Cougars got there was just as stunning.
Junior guard Austin Braun, carrying a 7.8 points-per-game average heading into the week, scored 31 while Mr. Basketball finalist Marcus Bingham, Jr., watched the final five minutes from the bench after fouling out.
“I got a couple buckets early and my teammates just really got me going, just getting me hyped on the bench,” Braun said, “and just telling me, ‘If they don’t stop you, just score the ball.’
“It helps when you have two bigs and Darrell (Belcher) and Devin (Boyd) were great players around me. It just opens up a lot for me.”
Grand Rapids Catholic Central (24-2) will play for that first championship against Benton Harbor at 6:45 p.m. Saturday in the final game of this boys basketball season.
Those bigs – the 6-foot-11 Bingham and 6-8 senior Jacob Polakovich – were plenty effective in a number of ways Friday.
Bingham had 11 points and 13 rebounds, and Polakovich had eight points and eight rebounds. But their larger impact came defensively. Bingham had six blocks, and together the tandem played a significant role in New Haven’s 30-percent shooting from the floor.
The Rockets’ 6-7 junior star Romeo Weems put together a solid line with 20 points, eight rebounds and seven steals. But even he was off his usual sharpness, making only 7 of 25 shots from the floor.
New Haven (26-1) as a team entered the week making 49 percent of its shots, with Weems connecting on 53 percent.
“We adjusted our shots. We saw it on film and we went to attack them,” New Haven coach Tedaro France II said. “We wanted to jump stop and pump fake. (But) they changed our shot selection a lot, disrupted our shots in the paint with some of their size.”
Braun, meanwhile, was just about perfect offensively. He made 8 of 9 shots from the floor, including his lone 3-point try, and 14 of 16 free throw attempts. He also had three assists and three steals.
The first of those steals came between buckets as he scored the game’s first four points. The free throw shooting came in handy at the end, as Braun drilled nine over the final five minutes to help the Cougars extend an 11-point lead to 18 after Bingham’s night was done.
“I knew he could score like that,” Polakovich said. “It’s just always been a matter of having a lot of mismatches inside with me and Marcus and being able to crash. … (But) a lot of people don’t realize he’s capable of doing that every single night. He’s a lot more than just a really great passer.”
Bingham did finish with 11 points despite a tough 3-of-11 shooting night as well, and grabbed 13 rebounds with six blocked shots. Weems was followed by senior guard Tavares Oliver, Jr., with 15 points and senior forward Ashton Sherrell with 12 points and seven rebounds.
PHOTOS: (Top) Grand Rapids Catholic Central’s Marcus Bingham, Jr., gets a hand on Romeo Weems’ shot Friday at the Breslin Center. (Middle) GRCC’s Austin Braun puts up a shot with Ronald Jeffrey III defending.
Tri-unity Endures Ingalls' Scoring Surge, Earns 4th-Straight Finals Trip
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
March 14, 2024
EAST LANSING — Thursday’s first Division 4 Semifinal was a matter of depth and experience overcoming star power.
St. Ignace senior Jonny Ingalls entered the game averaging 30 points a contest, and Wyoming Tri-unity Christian head coach Mark Keeler knew Ingalls would get his – which he did in the form of 31 points.
But summoning their wealth of big-game experience and a deeper bench, Tri-unity Christian overcame Ingalls and St. Ignace with a late surge to earn a 60-53 win.
The Defenders (23-5) advanced to their fourth straight championship game, where they’ll look to claim a second title in three seasons after losing last year’s Final 39-37 to Munising.
“I think depth had a lot to do with it,” Tri-unity Christian head coach Mark Keeler said. “I think they were all tired. I told them before the game that (Ingalls) is going to get some shots. He is an amazing player. He is going to knock them down. What we didn’t want was for him to score 41 points like he did the last game.”
Tri-unity Christian certainly had a lot of work to do in less than a 48-hour period between Tuesday’s Quarterfinal round and Thursday to prepare for Ingalls, which made practice a more concentrated effort than usual Wednesday.
“We hadn’t played someone with the talent and jump shot he has all year,” Tri-unity Christian senior Jordan VanKlompenberg said. “We said we were going to face-guard him and not let him catch the ball, but if he’s bringing the ball up, it’s hard to do that. In practice, we definitely focused more on a single player.”
The teams went back-and-forth the entire game, but especially during the fourth quarter.
St. Ignace held a 40-36 lead going into the fourth, but Tri-unity Christian scored the first five points of the quarter to take a 41-40 lead with 6:05 remaining in the game.
The Saints responded with a run of their own, scoring the next seven points to take a 47-41 lead with 4:46 left following a pair of free throws by Ingalls.
But Tri-unity Christian had an answer of its own, going on a 12-1 run to grab a 53-48 lead with 1:54 to go. The run was highlighted by a pair of 3-pointers by senior Lincoln Eerdmans.
A basket by Ingalls brought St. Ignace to within 55-51 with 1:03 remaining, but Tri-unity Christian did a nice job of keep-away with the ball and ultimately went up 57-51 with 34 seconds left on two free throws by VanKlompenberg.
A 3-point attempt by Ingalls went in and out on the next St. Ignace possession, and the shot was rebounded Tri-unity Christian junior Keaton Blanker. Following a foul, Blanker made two free throws to give the Defenders a 59-51 lead with 24.4 seconds remaining that all but sealed the game.
Blanker scored 19 points, and senior Wesley Kaman added 14 for Tri-unity Christian, which had a 38-26 rebounding advantage.
It was a tough way to end the season for St. Ignace (21-7), which advanced to the Semifinals for the first time since 1983 and now has to say farewell to six seniors – and retiring 25-year coach Doug Ingalls – who brought the program to heights not seen in more than four decades.
“They finished and we didn’t, and that was the deciding factor in this game,” said Ingalls, who is stepping down with a record of 375-182 over three stints leading the program. “We had the heart of a champion.”
PHOTOS (Top) Tri-unity Christian’s Keaton Blanker (4) works to get a shot past the outstretched arms of St. Ignace’s Jonny Ingalls during Thursday’s Division 4 Semifinal. (Middle) Lincoln Eerdmans (25) splits a pair of Saints defenders. (Photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)