Onsted Quickly Finding Winning Combinations During Fast Starts
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
December 28, 2021
ONSTED – Austin Davis played college basketball under John Beilein and Juwan Howard at the University of Michigan. One of the lessons he brought home with him after four years with the Wolverines is now helping the Onsted boys basketball team excel.
“Austin talks to our team all of the time about being a star in your own role,” Onsted boys basketball coach Brad Maska said. “Whatever it is you do, whether it’s rebounding or scoring, you need to be a star in your specific role. That’s his message, and it's really made our team better.”
Davis is finished with the Wolverines, but not basketball. The Onsted graduate helps at practices and games when he can, and Maska said his presence is one of the reasons the Division 2 Wildcats were 5-0 heading into a holiday tournament this week that features teams from three states.
“Him just being here, being a part of it, is big for our guys,” Maska said. “We are lucky to have him.”
Davis also is tutoring his younger brother, 6-foot-9 sophomore Ayden Davis.
The younger Davis came on strong as the season went on last winter, and he has started this season even better, averaging better than 21 points a game. He scored 30 against Hanover-Horton and has a 20-rebound game to his credit as well.
“As coaches we learned so much when we had Austin,” Maska said. “All of the things we are trying to do with Ayden are things we didn’t do with Austin. We want to play fast, get out and run, and Ayden can run up and down the floor.”
Onsted has an interesting roster mix. There are five seniors, including captains Dayton Henagan and Harry Moore, who return from last season’s 14-4 team. There are three juniors, Davis is one of two sophomores, and there are two freshmen – Aidan Paquin and JT Hill – who played big roles in the first five wins.
“The collection of kids we have around Ayden is second to none,” said Maska, in his 15th year as Onsted head coach. “It all starts with our seniors and how they have bought in to what we are doing. We had a great summer together, and it is showing.”
Hill and Paquin both have hit big shots already this season. Junior Bradlee VanBrunt hit six 3-pointers in a win over Jonesville. Henagan is averaging six rebounds, five steals and five assists per game, and Moore has been filling up the stat sheets.
“It hasn’t been just one guy,” Maska said. “That’s what has been so exciting. Everyone is contributing, one through 11.”
Ayden grew up around the Onsted program while Austin was a three-year starter for the Wildcats. Their father, Eric Davis, remains an assistant coach. Ayden said he’s grateful for the work Austin puts in with him.
“We have a great relationship, and I’m so grateful for him being here and helping me,” Ayden said. “He helps with my shot, my footwork. He learned from Coach Beilein and Coach Howard. He’s bringing that to working with me. I’m very excited to work with him.
“He’ll put his shorts on and pull out the old basketball shoes sometimes and we go at it. It makes me a better player.”
Henagan, a 6-2 senior forward, is second on the team in scoring, putting up between 11 and 19 points in every game this season. He said as a captain, it's his role to ensure the younger players on the team are integrated into everything the team does.
“This summer was really important because we gelled right away,” he said. “Having that time brought everyone close together. Now we hang out and do things together as a team. It’s been big for us. We all trust each other. The summer really gave us a head start.”
Maska has upgraded the Wildcats’ schedule this season. They played three games over the first five nights of the season, are playing in the North Central Tournament in Ohio this week and will play at a Martin Luther King Day event in Ohio against Toledo St. Francis, a Division 1 school in its state.
“I like to play different teams,” Maska said. “In the summer we will play all over the place. We want to play the best and see how we stack up.”
It’s a good time for basketball all around at Onsted. The Wildcats JV boys are also undefeated, and the Onsted girls varsity is 5-0 after knocking off Brooklyn Columbia Central on Dec. 16. The Golden Eagles had won 34 straight Lenawee County Athletic Association games before the Wildcats beat them, 46-34, with great defense down the stretch.
Varsity girls head coach Brandon Arnold likes the versatility of his team.
“We have four guards, and we can do a lot of different things with them,” he said.
Senior Kaylei Smith, a Siena Heights University signee, is off to a great start with 85 points in five games, and sophomore Hailey Freshcorn is a gym rat who is fast and the ringleader on defense.
“She never comes out of the gym,” Arnold said.
Onsted won 14 games last year and graduated four-year starter and 1,000-point scorer Mya Hiram.
“No one expected us to start like this,” Arnold said. “But the girls have embraced it. We’re like the underdog right now.”
The Wildcats girls got a late start to the season due to the volleyball team reaching the Quarterfinals, and then battled some COVID-19 issues. They are rolling now but have some tough games coming up.
“We have a lot of momentum and confidence right now,” Arnold said. I like how we are playing, and the things we are doing.”
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) Onsted’s Dayton Henagan (3) makes his move toward the basket during a win over Hudson. (Middle) Past star Austin Davis coaches up one of Onsted’s current contributors. (Photos by Deloris Clark-Osborne.)
Harbor Light Building on Rock-Solid Foundation in Bringing Success to New Home
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
March 1, 2024
A review of Harbor Light Christian’s boys basketball rosters over the last couple of decades would show a lot of familiar names.
That would be especially true of the coaching slots.
Or are the players now coaches?
The coaches’ names are extremely familiar, and nothing much has changed – except some of the former players are now coaches, and the head coaches have returned to assist the program.
Today, the head coach is Jason Roussin. He’s in his 12th season at the helm of the Swordsmen. Jeff Jakeway, who was the head coach during Roussin’s junior and senior seasons at Harbor Light, is back on the Swordsmen’s staff as an assistant coach. Roussin is also assisted by long-time coach William Henagan and previous head coach Clark Hewitt.
Hewitt also serves as the Harbor Light junior varsity coach. The JV squad went 19-1 this season and 18-2 the year before.
“In 38 years, really there’s been three consistent coaches and then Pat Collins who had done one year when the program started, and now we’re all back on the sidelines working together,” Roussin said. “It’s been a lot of fun.”
The facilities Collins, Hewitt and Jakeway coached in are nothing like the Swordsmen have today – the newly-built Solid Rock Center in Harbor Springs. In fact, they used to play on a cement floor. A year ago, the Swordsmen played their first game in their new home.
A walk around the facility, five years in the making, provides the feeling of more like a small college program’s setup. Along with the new gym, the Solid Rock Center was equipped with a cafe and concession area, locker rooms, a film lounge and hangout area for the players, an upper-level full track around the gym, and three classrooms for art, music, science and more.
Jakeway served as project manager on the building — fully funded and debt-free through community support. He was the head coach of the Harbor Light girls basketball team when the facility opened.
Harbor Light’s boys suffered a 76-74 loss to hot-shooting Pellston in the facility’s first game Jan. 20, 2023, but haven’t been doing much losing since. The Swordsmen started this season 2-2, and after a heart-breaking loss to Traverse City Christian on Dec. 8 went on to share the Northern Lights Conference title with Alanson and have built that record to 20-4 heading into tonight’s District Final against St. Ignace.
The title game will be played at the Solid Rock Center. Another Jakeway, Jeff Jakeway’s son and freshman point guard Landon, will be getting his second chance to lead the Swordsmen to a District championship. He was the point guard as a seventh grader when Harbor Light won the District title two years ago. (Small schools like Harbor Light may request, for most sports, an MHSAA Executive Committee waiver to play eighth-grade students if the school’s enrollment is less than 125 and seventh-graders if the enrollment is less than 75. Harbor Light’s enrollment count for this school year is 61.)
Landon Jakeway is the team’s leading scorer, contributing 15 points per game. He scored 25 to lead the Swordsmen to a 67-31 win over Mackinaw City in Wednesday’s District Semifinal. That was Harbor Light’s third win this season over its league rival, allowing the Swordsmen to keep the Mack Light Ball, which goes to the winning team’s school after each victory in the rivalry. Wins over Mackinaw have been hard to come by in previous seasons.
David Chamberlin, at 13 points per game, and Corin Palus, scoring nine per contest, are the other leading scorers. Jakeway adds seven assists and four steals per game. Chamberlin kicks in seven rebounds per game, and Jackson Mesner and Kirk Rose contribute eight and five rebounds, respectively.
Chamberlin, Paulis, Mesner and Rose are all seniors.
“The team goal was really to ‘put the team before me’ mentality,” Roussin said. “We were going to work as a team, be loyal, be committed to one another and battle together.”
The Swordsmen also entered the season with their eyes on the Mack Light Ball, a conference championship and a long postseason run.
“We wanted to chase the conference and to battle for a District,” Roussin noted. “Obviously, we knew St. Ignace is in there and they are the favorite team.”
Senior leadership has been one of the keys to Harbor Light’s finishing atop the conference for the first time in more than a decade.
“We want to show up and play the best basketball you can to make your team the best they can,” Roussin said. “That’s what has been awesome with the leadership we’ve had on this team.
“Through all the guys is ‘it is not about me,’” Roussin continued. “It is about ‘what can I do to make the team better?’”
St. Ignace brings a 16-6 record into the Solid Rock Center. The Saints will have a chance to view some NBA history in addition to playing the final.
Above the main gym resides a mini court containing the Detroit Pistons floor from the Pontiac Silverdome. Before moving to The Palace of Auburn Hills, and most recently Little Caesars Arena, the Pistons played at the Silverdome from 1978-88.
Jeff Jakeway was able to get the court to Northern Michigan through connections in Novi.
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) Harbor Light’s Vaughn Henagan (23) gets to the basket during a 59-39 win over Kinross Maplewood Baptist on Dec. 21. (Middle) David Chamberlin (22) elevates over a Pellston defender as the Swordsmen work toward a 75-20 victory Jan. 19. (Photos by Billy Mac Photos.)