Davis Adding to Pittsford Winning Ways
December 13, 2019
By Doug Donnelly
Special for Second Half
PITTSFORD – Aaron Davis doesn’t have to worry about rebuilding Pittsford girls basketball.
While Davis is putting his own stamp on the program that has won two MHSAA Finals championships over the past five seasons, he knows the pieces already were in place when he was named the varsity head coach in June.
“There is a lot of ground work already in place at Pittsford,” said Davis. “It all starts with the youth level, and that’s already there. That is a blessing.”
Davis is in his first season at Pittsford and has the Wildcats off to a 3-0 start. He took over for Chris Hodos, who helped make Pittsford a household name in Class D girls basketball circles over the past decade.
“There are things that I do differently, but Chris and I shared a lot of the same philosophies about basketball,” said Davis, a 2007 graduate of North Adams-Jerome. “There are some things that we do that are from Chris. We still run some of the same presses.”
Davis was a three-sport athlete at North Adams-Jerome, playing basketball, football and baseball. He was a four-year varsity baseball player and spent a year on the Adrian College diamond, but an injury that dated back to his high school days cut his college career short.
“I tried it for a year, but it got to be too much stress on my body and arm,” he said.
Davis said that while growing up, his dad coached him in multiple sports. Davis also learned a lot from his high school coaches while playing at North Adams.
“My wife and I had always talked about me getting into coaching someday,” he said.
Davis got his start in coaching at his alma mater. He coached the junior varsity boys basketball team and had coached baseball with Hodos. In fact, when Hodos contacted him about coaching at Pittsford, Davis thought he was talking about baseball.
“After a few minutes, I was like, ‘Oh, you are talking about basketball,’” Davis said. “Chris was a great mentor. He helped me become a better coach.”
Davis spent three seasons as the Wildcats JV girls basketball coach. Hodos, he said, let him run the JV team as he wanted. That valuable experience has paid off in multiple ways early this winter.
Pittsford’s 3-0 start includes wins over Hudson (41-25), Tekonsha (50-12) and Waldron (68-15). Thus far, the Wildcats are giving up just 17.3 points a game. That’s by design.
“We’re real athletic, and we play good defense,” Davis said. “I have a lot of great defenders. Everything starts with our defense.”
Davis said the team presses, often full-court, and likes to create havoc for the other team as it works to just get the ball over the timeline.
“We are built to run, pressure and play fast,” he said. “We do a lot of trapping and try and force the other team into making bad passes. We like to try and create our offense with our defense.”
The Wildcats have 11 players: five seniors, four juniors and two sophomores. Jordyn Cole has been the team’s top scorer through three games. Another senior, Sara Cole, is right behind her. The other seniors are MaKayla McDaniel, Sam Leggett and Brooke Campbell.
“Jordyn and Sara, I’d say, take the majority of our shots,” Davis said, “but we really don’t have just one girl who can score for us. We don’t have that one player we rely on. We have girls up and down the line who are comfortable shooting. We like to spread it out.”
One thing that has helped in his transition is that every girl on the varsity roster played for Davis for at least a season. They all are familiar with him and his systems. He also brought on Greg Mallar to coach the Pittsford JV team. Mallar is also familiar to the girls because he has been coaching in the Wildcats youth program.
“He’s actually helped develop a lot of the girls,” Davis said.
Pittsford became a state power under Hodos. In his seven seasons as the head coach, the Wildcats went 156-14, including five consecutive 20-0 regular seasons and the Class D titles in 2016 and 2017. They fell just shy of Michigan’s record of 78 consecutive wins during that time frame.
Pittsford athletic director Mike Burger said the program is in good hands.
"I think that the way that he approaches coaching girls basketball fits quite nicely with the overall small-school athletics philosophy we have here at Pittsford,” Burger said.
The Wildcats play in the Southern Central Athletic Association with North Adams-Jerome, Jackson Christian, Hillsdale Academy and Camden-Frontier. Camden-Frontier and Hillsdale Academy both return several players from quality teams and also will play in the same District as Pittsford.
“It’s still early,” Davis said. “We’ve struggled at times offensively, but I’m not worried about that at this point. If we play up to our potential, we can make a run. But, like I said, it’s early. We’ll see what happens.”
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) First-year Pittsford varsity girls basketball coach Aaron Davis talks things over with his team during a practice this season. (Middle) Davis and his team are off to a 3-0 start. (Top photo courtesy of James Gensterblum; middle photo provided by Pittsford girls basketball program.)
Lyons Delivers Forever Shot to Clinch Unforgettable Rockford Finish
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
March 18, 2023
EAST LANSING – Brad Wilson had preached to his Rockford girls basketball team the importance of focusing on the next play. Not worrying about what had just happened, but moving forward and making the next play to help your team.
Apparently, he did a good job of drilling it home.
After hitting the biggest shot in program history and giving the Rams a final-minute lead in the MHSAA Division 1 Final against West Bloomfield, junior guard Grace Lyons’ mind immediately went to heeding her coaches instructions.
“It was amazing, but I knew we had to get back on defense and finish it out,” Lyons said.
Lyons and her Rockford teammates did finish it out, making her go-ahead 3-pointer with 40 seconds remaining the deciding bucket in a 40-36 win over West Bloomfield at the Breslin Center to capture the first Finals title in program history.
“Greatness is about the journey – it’s about the effort that gets put in each and every day,” Wilson said. “In my opinion, these girls were great before we even played this game. They were great before there was a single play in this game. But we had an opportunity to be the greatest in our school history today. Our mantra was, ‘Next play.’ (West Bloomfield) had a couple of runs where some teams would have folded, but our girls didn’t flinch. They steadied the storm, and when girls had opportunities to make plays, they did.”
The win avenged a Semifinal loss from a year ago, when the Lakers ended Rockford’s first trip to the Final Four.
“It’s an indescribable feeling,” Rockford senior guard Alyssa Wypych said. “I went light-headed. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is happening.’ It’s something I’ve worked my whole life for. It’s been a dream forever. To finally get it done is just amazing.”
Getting it done took surviving a tight, physical game with the reigning Division 1 champion. Both offenses struggled to get anything going against the other’s stellar defense, and the teams headed into the fourth quarter with West Bloomfield leading 23-22.
Neither team led by more than three points during the fourth quarter until Lyons hit a pair of free throws to ice the game with one-tenth of a second left on the clock.
“They are a really tough team,” Wypych said. “Especially since we had experience playing a majority of their players last year, we knew we were going to have another good game.”
West Bloomfield led 36-35 with under 2 minutes to play, but Lyons came up with a steal with 1:12 remaining to start her game-ending heroics.
Not long after, she found herself open near the top of the 3-point line and didn’t hesitate to let a shot fly, giving Rockford a 38-36 lead with 40 seconds to play. It was her first basket of the day.
“I wasn’t going to stop shooting just because I missed a few,” Lyons said. “I knew I was a good shooter, and at least one of them had to go in. When Anna drove in and just kicked me the ball, there wasn’t anyone around me so I just let it fly and it went in.”
Wilson said it’s a shot that will probably be talked about forever in Rockford.
“It’s a sports town,” he said. “High education, high standards. Our community loves our teams. Anywhere you go, you can’t get away from it. I’d expect the rest of my lifetime – I’m a Rockford Ram forever, raising my family here and I’m a teacher at the school – so I’m assuming we’re going to have conversations about this for the rest of my life. There’s nothing more I’d rather talk about. So, pretty awesome.”
West Bloomfield (26-3) had two chances to tie the game, but turned the ball over on its first, and missed a pair of free throws with 2.8 seconds remaining on its second.
The Rams (28-1) still had to avoid a turnover against West Bloomfield’s incredibly effective press, but they managed, with Lyons inbounding the ball and getting a return pass before being fouled.
While Lyons was the hero down the stretch, Rockford was in the game thanks in large part to the efforts of sophomore Anna Wypych. She finished the game with 20 points and eight rebounds.
“She puts in more time than most people on the planet,” Wilson said. “She’s a gym rat. We do so much as a program, and (when) we’re not doing stuff, she’s doing stuff on her own. When she came here, there were some things she had to learn. Over the course of these last two years, just her evolution in her game, whether it be offense, whether it be defense, whether it’s attacking the basket, knocking down 3s and really just being a big player in big moments, it’s astonishing. I couldn’t be more proud of this one here.”
While West Bloomfield’s pressure defense was giving Rockford trouble, the Rams’ defense was doing the same to the Lakers. West Bloomfield was just 14 of 42 from the field, and star twins Summer and Indya Davis were held to 12 points, with Indya scoring eight.
Junior Kendall Hendrix led West Bloomfield with 12 points and seven rebounds, while senior Sydney Hendrix had 10 points.
“They came here for a reason, and they came here to beat us, because they had nothing to lose and we had everything to lose,” Kendall Hendrix said. “So, next year, we have nothing to lose. I think next year gives us more motivation.”
Another rematch isn’t far-fetched, as both teams bring back the majority of their rosters.
When asked if they expected it, Rockford’s players didn’t hesitate to answer in the affirmative.
“That’s the plan,” Wilson said.
PHOTOS (Top) Rockford’s Grace Lyons (11) shoots the go-ahead 3-pointer with 40 seconds to play Saturday in the Division 1 Final. (Middle) The Rams’ Anna Wypych (2) drives to the basket with West Bloomfield’s Sydney Hendrix (5) defending. (Below) Kayla MacLaren (14) is presented the championship trophy while her teammates celebrate.