'All in' Lenawee Christian Locks Up D4
March 23, 2019
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
GRAND RAPIDS – By Bree Salenbien’s admission, she was “kinda out of it” during Saturday morning’s Division 4 Final at Van Noord Arena.
But that gave Adrian Lenawee Christian a chance to show this year’s title was won by a fully talented team in addition to being paced by one of the state’s top sophomores.
The all-stater and no doubt early candidate for the 2021 Miss Basketball Award was as off as 17 points, 13 rebounds and six assists can be, perhaps. But junior sister Dani Salenbien scored a game-high 19 points, and as a team the Cougars held St. Ignace to its season low for points – and held on 48-46 to earn their second-straight championship after claiming the Class D title a year ago.
Scoring came to a standstill as both teams locked down defensively during the second half. Lenawee Christian didn’t even have a field goal during the fourth quarter and scored their second-fewest points of this winter. But the Cougars held onto the lead for all but 26 seconds of the final period and made a pair of defensive stops over the final two minutes to keep from relinquishing it at the end.
“(It showed) that we played together and we trust each other, and when one person’s down we’re going to pick each other up,” Dani Salenbien said. “We have girls who will step up when we need it, and that helps a lot. We are there to pick each other up no matter what.”
Lenawee Christian finished 26-2, its only losses to ranked Division 3 teams Grass Lake and Michigan Center. The Cougars are a combined 52-3 over the last two seasons – and of the seven players who saw the floor Saturday, only guard Brooke Brinning was a senior.
St. Ignace (27-1) was going for its first championship since winning Class C in 2015, and first 28-0 finish of its storied history. The Saints should also be considered major contenders again next season, as they’ll graduate significant senior forwards Emily Coveyou and Madison Olsen but are set to return the rest of this season’s roster.
The teams Saturday couldn’t have been more perfectly matched, with the 6-foot-2 Bree Salenbien and 6-foot Coveyou used to carrying the offensive loads for their respective teams while talented casts provided perhaps underrated contributions around them.
The score was tied 10 times and for 9 minutes and 35 seconds total. At the end of it all, the deciding basket may have been sunk just before halftime. After Bree Salenbien and St. Ignace sophomore guard Emmalee Hart traded 3-pointers to make the score 30-30 late in the second quarter, Dani Salenbien sank a 2-pointer with nine seconds to play in the first half that gave her team a slight edge heading into the break.
And Lenawee Christian would end up needing every point.
“I can kinda just tell if she’s in a little zone,” Cougars coach Jamie Salenbien said of his eldest daughter on the team. “And it looked like she was, so we just wanted to try to get her in good spots. She was feeling it tonight. … She’s got a real good change of speed, change of direction. So it helped at the end of the second quarter, when she got to the baseline and laid it in.”
St. Ignace made 30 percent of its shots from the floor for the game, and Lenawee Christian connected on 33 percent. St. Ignace applied its signature press, and the Cougars had 21 turnovers. Lenawee Christian had a plan to press as well during the fourth quarter – “but that got thrown out the window,” coach Jamie Salenbien said. “We just tried to hang on at the end. With the amount of good defense being played out there, it was hard to get good looks. … They were up in our grill.”
The Saints dominated below the basket as well, outscoring Lenawee Christian 28-10 in the paint. But the best “all-in” effort by Lenawee Christian – keeping with the team's motto this season – came in limiting St. Ignace’s 3-point shooting, as the Saints could connect on only 2 of 18 from beyond the arc.
“I’m proud of our kids, their stick-to-itiveness even though we couldn’t make a shot,” St. Ignace coach Dorene Ingalls said. “We kept at it, kept fighting. … We knew it was going to be an epic game, but we fell a little short. They definitely were there all heart, and I’m proud of them.”
Coveyou scored 17 points to lead St. Ignace, and sophomore guards Hallie Marshall and Hart both added 11 and combined for seven of the team’s nine points during the fourth quarter. Marshall also added three assists and four steals, and the defensive-minded Hart had six rebounds and one steal and many more contributions that didn’t show in the box score. Her basket during the final second made the final margin.
“Even though we didn’t win today and have the season we hoped for,” Coveyou said, “it still doesn’t take away from the awesome season we had.”
Bree Salenbien – who made the game-winner to send her team to the championship game a year ago – connected on only 3 of 14 shots Saturday. But Dani Salenbien made 6 of 11, and Brinning, junior guard Libby Miller and freshman guard Cara Anderson all added four points. Despite the lack of a field goal, the Cougars made 10 of 11 free-throw attempts in the fourth quarter, and Bree Salenbien finished 9 of 10 from the line for the game.
“I’m so proud of the culture these girls have created, led by my seniors Brooke and Grace (Beach), and our captain Dani and the rest of them. Everybody’s accepted their role in an era when, quite frankly, no one wants to share,” Jamie Salenbien said. “These girls are all about sharing, commitment, trust, love, sacrifice and their faith, and it’s carried us through to here.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Adrian Lenawee Christian players celebrate their second straight MHSAA Final win Saturday at Calvin College. (Middle) The Cougars’ Bree Salenbien (35) works to get to the basket with three Saints defending, including Emma Feleppa (42).
Kelsey Carries Well Richards' Legacy
January 9, 2020
By Tom Kendra
Special for Second Half
Kelsey Richards is constantly compared to her older sisters, which doesn’t bother her one bit.
“They were both amazing players, so I’ll take it,” Kelsey said with her big smile, which is on display seemingly everywhere – except during her basketball games.
“I feel like it’s my time. It’s my time to show my senior leadership and my love for Christ as we play.”
Kelsey, a 6-0 senior, like older sisters Taylor and Allyson before her, is a fifth-year varsity starter for Fruitport Calvary Christian, a school of just 72 students which the Richards girls – with the help of their father and 10th-year coach Brad Richards – have transformed into a Division 4 powerhouse in West Michigan.
Fruitport Calvary has averaged 20 wins per season over the past nine years, with seven consecutive Alliance League championships and six straight MHSAA District titles. In five of those seasons, Calvary’s tournament run ended at the hands of state power Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart in Regional Finals.
But last year, the Eagles flew south for Regionals and Kelsey scored 21 points as they broke through with a 49-46 victory over Mendon for the school’s first-ever Regional championship in any sport. Calvary lost in the Quarterfinals to eventual Division 4 champion Adrian Lenawee Christian.
“It’s just a real blessing,” Coach Richards explained after a lopsided victory Tuesday night over visiting Hudsonville Libertas Christian. “We put God first, family second and basketball third. This school has allowed us to do all three of those things at one time, and we are so thankful for that.”
This year, the Eagles are off to a 6-2 start, with losses coming against Division 3 opponents Muskegon Western Michigan Christian and Hart, and the most notable win 50-46 over Division 2 Central Montcalm last week at the Cornerstone University Holiday Tournament. Richards matched her jersey number with 33 points in that game.
Fruitport Calvary will be shooting for its 51st consecutive Alliance League victory when it opens conference play Friday night at Byron Center Zion Christian.
The first constant for the Eagles over the past nine years is an ultra-aggressive style of play, using relentless full-court pressure to break teams down. As a result, Calvary gets to the free-throw line often, with the goal every game to make more free throws than the other team attempts.
The second constant is the dominating play of the Richards sisters.
Taylor Richards put Calvary girls basketball on the map before graduating in 2014. She remains the school’s all-time career leader in points (2,455), rebounds (1,541) and assists (381). Taylor went on to a standout career at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids and now coaches eighth-grade girls basketball at Northern Hills Middle School.
Allyson Richards had an amazing prep career of her own, graduating in 2017 as the school’s second-leading career scorer (1,951) and rebounder (1,167). She is now a junior forward for Cornerstone, but has played less than half the team’s games this season due to injuries.
Kelsey, who like her sisters has the ability to play every position on the court, is moving up the school’s record book. The two-time all-stater has scored 1,879 points and needs just 73 to surpass Allyson for second place on the school record list.
Some of Calvary’s best seasons came when the Richards sisters played together. While the three never played varsity at the same time, Taylor and Allyson played together for three years, while Allyson and Kelsey played together for two years.
Kelsey has not had a sibling on the roster for the past three years, but filling that void admirably has been 6-0 senior Lizzie Cammenga. Richards and Cammenga are the only seniors on Calvary’s 10-player roster, and both are fifth-year varsity players and returning all-staters, who can play any position based on the opponent. (Schools with fewer than 100 students may play eighth graders on high school teams, although only their statistics from grades 9-12 count toward MHSAA record book consideration.)
“This team is a joy to coach,” explained Brad Richards, who previously coached girls basketball for 12 years at Ravenna and was named The Associated Press Class C state Coach of the Year in 2002. “Lizzie and Kelsey are our leaders, but all of these girls come from great families and are self-motivated to keep getting better.”
The final piece of the Richards basketball puzzle is younger brother Bradley, a 6-foot-3 seventh grader at Calvary. Coach Richards is considering switching over to boys basketball after this season for the opportunity to coach his son.
Richards retired from teaching history at Ravenna in 2018, which gives him more time to devote to coaching, his second career as a realtor and now an unexpected “mid-life adventure” which has made him a national television figure.
Richards is one of the researchers in “The Curse of Civil War Gold,” a series which premiered on The History Channel in the spring of 2018 and has reached an estimated 24.2 million viewers.
The show theorizes that Union soldiers confiscated millions of dollars in Confederate gold and silver during the final stages of the Civil War, then carried out a plot to smuggle the loot back to Michigan using the railway system and then laundered it through the banking system. According to a lighthouse keeper's deathbed confession years later, part of the stolen Confederate treasury was put into a train car on a barge and pushed off a ferry into Lake Michigan.
“It’s been a lot of fun and people from all over come up to me and talk about it,” said Richards, who has traveled as far away as Utah and Georgia to do research. “I am grateful to be a part of this project. I've been blessed by the Lord through this mid-life adventure.”
On the court, Kelsey and her father are focused on getting better each game to try and make another postseason run.
Kelsey is much happier talking about her teammates than herself, pointing out the improvement of the team’s other three starters – junior Kyra Hamilton, sophomore Cate Anhalt and freshman McKena Wilson.
“Each of the teams I’ve played on has been very different, but I’ve been really surprised how well some of our younger girls have played this year,” said Kelsey, noting Anhalt’s improved shooting and Wilson’s ability to stay calm in pressure situations.
Kelsey does plan to break one family tradition by not going to Cornerstone University, opting instead to play basketball at Spring Arbor College, an evangelical Christian school near Jackson. Brad played basketball at Cornerstone, her mother, Joy, played volleyball there and her two older sisters played basketball – but she chose a different path.
“I felt very comfortable when I visited Spring Arbor and I really like the girls on the team and Coach (Ryan) Frost,” said Kelsey, 17, who plans to sign with Spring Arbor on Jan. 28.
But first, she is determined to make the most of her final prep basketball season and the final five months of high school, where she is one of just 14 seniors.
“I really enjoy that we are small, because we are more like a family here,” said Kelsey, who runs track in the spring. “As big as basketball is for me, I really love being a chapel leader at school and a worship leader for youth group. A lot of people know me as a basketball player, but that part of my life is really important to me.”
Tom Kendra worked 23 years at The Muskegon Chronicle, including five as assistant sports editor and the final six as sports editor through 2011. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Muskegon, Oceana, Mason, Lake, Oceola, Mecosta and Newaygo counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Kelsey Richards defends during a game earlier this season against Hart. (Middle) Richards works to get past a Muskegon Catholic Central defender last season. (Below) The Richards children, from left: Kelsey Richards, Allyson Richards (junior at Cornerstone), Bradley Richards (6-3 seventh grader at Fruitport Calvary Christian) and Taylor Richards (Cornerstone graduate). (Action photos courtesy of Dr. Tom Watkins; family photo courtesy of the Richards family.)