Built for this Moment, Western Arrives
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
January 16, 2018
McKenna Walker was a fourth grader when her dad, Tim, returned for his second stint as coach of the Bay City Western girls basketball team.
At that point, she didn’t realize what she and her friends were building. She simply was having fun playing basketball.
But her dad saw the future of his program.
“They were successful at a young age,” Tim Walker said. “I could see the athletic ability. I could see they were competitive and willing to learn at a young age. You could kind of see it coming with putting these pieces together.”
Now, as McKenna enters the second half of her senior season, she and her teammates are proving her father right. The Warriors are coming off their first back-to-back winning seasons since 1998-99, and were 9-0 heading into Tuesday night’s matchup with rival Midland. They’re ranked No. 6 in Class A by The Associated Press, and No. 8 by the Detroit Free Press.
“We have some really strong leadership with my daughter, McKenna – she’s been a big part of the turnaround since her freshman year,” said Tim Walker, who took over the program five games into the 2009-10 season, and also coached the Warriors from 1994-2004. “Also, we have kids in her class that have stuck with it and have been very committed since third and fourth grade. We have a strong group of juniors that have also been committed. They’re all competitive athletes, and I’ve been blessed to have kids who are dominant in other sports and have really meshed well together, accept their roles and play hard. It’s been very enjoyable to be a part of.”
This season, Bay City Western is winning with an uptempo style, sometimes driven by a five-guard lineup. McKenna Walker, who signed with Northwood University in November, leads that charge. She averaged 19 points and 8.4 rebounds per game as a junior, and started this season with 1,120 career points. In a recent game against Saginaw, she set a career high with 39 points.
She is one of two four-year players on the team, as Kylie Lukowski also has been playing varsity ball since her freshman year. Lukowski stands at just 5 feet, 6 inches tall, but she finds a home in the post when it’s asked of her.
“I try my hardest because I’m not very tall, obviously,” she said. “So I just have to push them around a little bit and see if it bothers them at all.”
Despite the lack of size, things seem to be working, as the Warriors are keeping teams off balance and taking advantage of the matchups their smaller lineup creates.
“Let’s just say if there were a shot clock, we would not have a hard time getting a shot off,” Tim Walker said. “It’s not that we’re making them all, but we’re playing uptempo and forcing turnovers.”
The hope is that style can translate to victories in the postseason, which have been elusive for Bay City Western. The school won District titles in 1997 and 1998, but none since.
“(Winning a District title) would just be so cool,” McKenna Walker said. “It’s been one of my goals since coming in, because it’s been such a long time, and I just wanted to change that.”
When looking at the competition for a District title, one easily can forgive the Warriors’ current drought.
This season, like most, the bracket includes Bay City Central, Midland, Midland Dow, Mount Pleasant and Saginaw Heritage, which would be a tough path for any team.
“As these kids (were) developing at a young age, we’ve been having to set the bar awfully high,” Tim Walker said. “Because the Midlands have always been good, the Saginaw teams have always been good. You really have to get the kids to buy into the offseason work and just work hard.”
Two seasons ago, Western found itself leading Saginaw Heritage at halftime in a District Semifinal. Heritage came back to win the game, however, and eventually advanced to the Regional Final.
It was a tough loss, but also served as a confidence builder and teaching moment for the young Warriors.
“We definitely learned that every team is beatable,” McKenna Walker said. “Even if we’re playing a team that we’re supposed to beat, you never know, because every team is beatable. You never want to think that it’s UConn playing you. We’re all high school girls. We’re all the same age. Anything can happen.”
The Saginaw Valley League helps prepare the Warriors for this postseason gauntlet, although it’s preparing everyone else in the District as well. The league includes the six teams from the District, plus Davison, Flint Carman-Ainsworth, Bay City John Glenn, Flint Powers Catholic, Saginaw, Saginaw Arthur Hill, Flint and Lapeer all forming one division this winter.
The schedule can be a grind, but it also helps the team stay focused on the day-to-day routine needed to be successful and reach the goals it set at the beginning of the season – and the promise Tim Walker saw in this group so long ago.
“What I have noticed is, mentally, each night they’re in a pretty good place right now,” Tim Walker said. “They just have a really good grasp on what it takes to play with effort, team play and execution.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Bay City Western’s McKenna Walker gets to the basket during Bay City Western’s opener against Frankenmuth. (Middle) The Warriors defend the post against the Eagles. (Photos by Chip DeGrace.)
'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).