League Change Suiting Mesick Well as Talented Bulldogs Pursue Repeat
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
January 21, 2022
Who let the dogs out?
Who, who — let the Mesick Bulldogs — in?
That’s the question West Michigan D League rivals may be asking.
And, it’s more like a what … with the answer being the league’s expansion to 10 schools for the 2018-19 school year that paved the way for Mesick to enter.
Until that point, the Bulldogs were part of the Northwest Conference. They won only three games total over their last two years in the Northwest while competing against schools like Buckley – which reached the Class D championship game in both of the Bulldogs’ final two years in their old league. Mesick’s girls – 8-2 this winter – were struggling too.
The last two years in the Northwest also were the first two for the boys varsity under head coach Kyle Duby. The move may have helped turn things around for Mesick, along with extensive offseason work and youth development efforts.
The Mesick boys won five games in 2018-19 and six in 2019-2020 before going 11-6 last year and capturing a share of the West Michigan D championship – Mesick’s first piece of a conference basketball championship in 39 years.
Today, they Bulldogs are 7-0 and in the driver’s seat in league play. They have wins over league opponents Big Rapids Crossroads, Bear Lake, Brethren, Mason County Eastern, Walkerville and Baldwin.
The boys, with an outright conference championship on their minds, will finish their first run through the league schedule against Marion next week. Marion came into the West Michigan D at the same time as Mesick.
“This year we knew we wanted to win the conference outright,” said Duby, who also serves as the school’s athletic director. “That’s one of our goals.
“We also have a goal to make a run – whatever that may look like – in the postseason,” he continued. “First and foremost, we wanted to win our conference outright.”
Keeping their starters healthy and able to play has been a challenge for the Bulldogs, but scoring has not. Injuries and COVID-related absences have caused Duby to alter his starting lineup regularly as the Bulldogs are hitting 70 points-plus per game.
Senior forward Conner Simmer is the team’s leading scorer, averaging 18. Another senior, Logan Wienclaw, chips in 12 from his center spot, while juniors Carter Simmer and Caleb Linna contribute 11.5 and 10 points per game, respectively.
“We have several kids who have worked hard for several years,” Duby said. “There is no one person you can shut down and expect to beat us.”
The Bulldogs, who also get almost eight points per game from junior Ashton Simerson, rack up 17 assists per games. Three-point shooting is also a strength. The Bulldogs got into the Michigan record books with 15 3-pointers on 32 tries in Thursday’s 73-45 win over Baldwin.
The Baldwin win helped erase memories of a big loss last year. Things are different as Mesick in nearing the halfway point of this home-and-home conference schedule. The Bulldogs have played the majority of their league games on the road and will be playing host a lot while enjoying their ride in the driver’s seat.
“Baldwin was the team that stopped us from an outright conference championship last year,” Duby said. “Winning in Baldwin and getting through the mental hurdle is exciting for us.”
High scoring has been a major contributor to the Bulldogs’ success to date, along with many of the current varsity having played together since middle school – the same time Duby took over the program.
Film study is another significant factor. Based on the review, the Bulldogs prepare to use a variety of presses and half court defenses from their repertoire.
“We have eight different defenses we can play depending on what the film said,” Duby pointed out. “We do what the films tells us.”
“Luckily I have had these boys since they were in sixth and seventh grade, and we played a lot of summer basketball,” he continued. “They are a high-IQ group.”
The road to success started years ago with a meeting Duby held with the parents of today’s Bulldogs.
“I knew the task of getting to this point was going to be a long one,” Duby said. “Right away, we started having them travel.
“We’d take a junior high, JV and varsity team and go down to Muskegon, Grand Rapids, Lansing … Flint and be downstate in summer about four weekends,” he continued. “We would take our whole program together and caravan and play basketball.”
Duby credits the fast start to his coaching staff, which includes Joe Lewis, Derek Linna, Nathan Hall and Jason McCree.
“My JV coach, Joe Lewis, has been with me since day one,” Duby said. “Over the years we’ve absorbed some dads to the staff.”
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) Mesick boys basketball coach Kyle Duby addresses his team during a game this season. (Middle) Logan Wienclaw (20) goes up for a jump ball. (Photos by Daniel Cochrane.)
New Haven Locks Down, Lifts Class B Trophy
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
March 25, 2017
EAST LANSING – The New Haven boys basketball team has made a habit of lighting up scoreboards with explosive offensive performances.
But in their biggest game of the season, when pulled into a slowed-down game by Ludington, the Rockets dug deep and won with defense.
They held Ludington scoreless for the first 6½ minutes of the fourth quarter Saturday on the way to a 45-36 win to claim the Class B title at the Breslin Center. It was the first MHSAA Finals title for the Rockets, who were also making their first appearance in a boys basketball championship game.
“It was a great game, they’re a great team – they took away things that we do and played a great zone,” New Haven coach Tedaro France II said. “We kept our composure. It wasn’t a game that if you told me, we would come here and win this way. We scored the lowest point total we scored the whole year, and we found a way to win.”
The Rockets held Ludington to 11 of 49 (22.4 percent) shooting from the field, and while they were credited with just four blocks – all by sophomore Romeo Weems – the presence of shot blockers clearly caused problems for the Orioles, especially in the fourth quarter, when they shot 2 of 15 (13.3 percent) from the floor.
“You have to give a lot of credit to New Haven for that,” Ludington coach Thad Shank said. “They’re long and athletic and make it hard to finish. I thought we got a lot of great looks tonight, but that’s the game of basketball; sometimes they don’t always go in.”
Weems, who is already fielding Division I college offers, led all scorers with 19 points. He added 10 rebounds and three steals as well. Senior Eric Williams, Jr., had 14 points and seven rebounds for the Rockets (27-1), and Ashton Sherrell grabbed 11 rebounds.
Ludington was led by Calvin Hackert, who had 16 points. Sam LaDuke scored 10, and Noah Laman pulled down 10 rebounds for the Orioles. Six of Hackert’s points came in the final 1:30 on a pair of 3-pointers. Those were the only points the Orioles scored in the final quarter.
“We went with our man-to-man press trapping (in the fourth quarter), and they called a timeout because I don’t think they knew what to do,” Weems said. “I started giving everything I had left, getting scrappy, started rebounding more and got more aggressive.”
The game was played at a pace Ludington dictated, as the Orioles killed clock with long possessions and limited second-chance opportunities for the Rockets despite a massive size disadvantage. Ludington actually grabbed more offensive rebounds than the Rockets (14-10), and matched the Rockets in second-chance points (11).
Thanks to that, New Haven’s lead was just one heading into the fourth quarter.
“It was absolutely the way we wanted it to be,” Shank said. “We were hoping we would have the ability to control this game with our offense a little bit coming in. Be aggressive but patient, and really force them to guard a lot of things, and keep them from getting out in transition, and we did a pretty good job of that.”
Ludington (25-3) led by as many as eight, taking a 15-7 lead in the second quarter. But a Weems 3 sparked a 16-4 New Haven run to end the first half, giving the Rockets a 23-19 lead heading into the break. The game remained tight from there until the Rockets were able to break it open in the final four minutes of the fourth quarter.
“We started off and nobody was hitting shots,” Weems said. “I just looked at (Williams) and was like, ‘He’s not in it yet,’ so I hit the shot and was like, ‘I have to hit this and let him know I have his back.’
“We started hitting shots and started going on runs, then they started going on runs. In the second half, we just took off, started playing hard, started pressuring them and got them out of their comfort zone.”
For France, a New Haven graduate, bringing home a Class B title was extra special.
“It just means a lot – you could see all the fans here – it just means so much to our school, to our town, the Village of New Haven,” France said. “This sport here is what a lot of people live through. I had a family that’s been coming to the games the last two years – they were sick, the wife is dying. He said they come to watch these kids play, and when they come they don’t feel pain, they don’t feel stress. For that hour and a half, they’re just there to watch these kids play, and it brings so much pride to them.
“Like I tell (the players), you’re not just playing for yourselves, you’re playing for more than just you, and these kids get that.”
Ludington’s season ended with its first trip to an MHSAA championship game since 1953, and one night after a buzzer-beating overtime win against River Rouge.
“It’s pretty cool to know that we made history and this team will probably never be forgotten,” Hackert said. “It’s a huge accomplishment. It’s just awesome, and we’ll never forget it.”
PHOTOS: (Top) New Haven’s Romeo Weems (23) and Ashton Sherrell (3) help surround a Ludington ballhandler during Saturday’s Class B Final. (Middle) Ludington’s Joshua Laman looks for an open teammate while being doubled by Rockets defenders.