DeWitt Sees Way to 1st Final since 1977
March 20, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – DeWitt girls basketball coach Bill McCullen has seen the motivation for his team’s longest tournament run in nearly 40 years in the eyes of his players for months.
His five seniors found their determination in the eyes of their former teammates at the ends of the last three seasons.
Most years, McCullen carries a few underclassmen on varsity. That additional time molds those players into the next team leaders – and also has allowed these seniors the chance to experience first-hand the disappointment of ending the last three seasons in the District tournament.
DeWitt played in its fourth MHSAA Semifinal on Friday of McCullen’s 19 seasons as coach. The Panthers will play for its first championship since 1977 on Saturday thanks to a 44-36 win over Saginaw Heritage – and the motivation they gained from falling short earlier in their careers.
“More toward the end of every season, we’re not happy with how we finish. That fuels every season from there after,” four-year varsity guard Claudia Reid said. “We get a little farther each time, but it’s always ended in disappointment.
“… (And) the seniors who graduated before us, that we played with when we were in the younger grades, we saw how they went out,” three-year senior forward Abby Nakfoor continued. “We’ve seen how much heartbreak they had to go through with that, and we didn’t want to go out with a loss.”
DeWitt (25-1) will face reigning champion Bloomfield Hills Marian in Saturday’s noon championship game at MSU.
The Panthers had last played in an MHSAA Semifinal in 2009, in Class B. They made the jump into Class A for the 2011-12 school year, and this winter for the first time found similar tournament success.
Seniors Maria Moss, Cayce Palmer and Alex Bilbo all joined Nakfoor and Reid with the varsity as sophomores in 2012-13 and were part of a league title team that winter. But the team didn’t advance past the second game of the District either of the last two.
“I’ve seen it in their eyes, and this goes back months and months and months,” McCullen said. “These kids … have been through a lot. Knee injuries, blood clots on the brain and all kinds of things. We just have some kids that don’t want to be denied right now.”
They had to answer only once Friday, but at a crucial juncture as the Hawks appeared on the verge of breaking away after pushing to get back even.
DeWitt led by as many as eight points during the first half, but found itself slowed way down by the Hawks’ zone defense and trailing 19-18 three minutes into the third quarter after a basket by Heritage sophomore Haley Brefka.
But the Panthers didn’t allow the Hawks to gain a foothold. The teams traded a few shots and turnovers over the next three minutes before Reid found Moss on a transition bucket that seemed to kick the pace back in DeWitt’s favor.
The Panthers’ seniors scored 21 of the team’s 23 points the rest of the way.
Reid finished with 11 points and six assists and Nakfoor added eight points and five rebounds. Junior center Lilly George added eight points and six rebounds.
Saginaw Heritage coach Vonnie DeLong spoke after of her senior guards Allie Miller and Aubree Snow, who combined for 19 points, six rebounds and six assists.
Her words could've applied to DeWitt’s veterans as well.
“You don’t get here without guard play. It just doesn’t happen,” DeLong said. “That’s usually who wins it, teams with good guard play. Guards will carry you this far.”
Heritage finished 24-4 after its longest tournament run since winning Class A in 2002. The Hawks played two freshmen, two sophomores and a junior with their senior guards – and should bring back a number of players with valuable experience for another run next winter after making one that DeLong admitted most in Michigan probably didn’t expect.
“I’m disappointed I couldn’t play one last game here, and with this team,” Snow said. “But we did come this far, so I’m proud of that.”
Click for a full box score and video from the press conference.
PHOTOS: (Top) DeWitt’s Claudia Reid drives to the basket with Heritage’s Allie Miller (20) defending Friday. (Middle) Miller looks for an opening with Reid closing off part of the lane.
Heroes Rise to Earn P-W's Legendary Win
March 23, 2019
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
GRAND RAPIDS – The seconds couldn’t tick off the clock fast enough Saturday for a Pewamo-Westphalia girls basketball team on the verge of its first championship for the third season in a row.
Side by side on the bench, each with four fouls, sat juniors Ellie Droste and Hannah Spitzley – who together scored more than half of the Pirates’ points this winter.
On the floor, senior Rachel Huhn faced the start of the fourth quarter charged with holding things together as the only other player with significant experience from P-W’s last two tournament runs.
“Seeing those two in foul trouble, I knew especially being a senior leader, I knew my focus was just to keep everyone positive, keep everyone together,” Huhn said. “Just keep us in one unit, and stay calm.”
She also knew she was now the team’s top offensive option – but surely she didn’t anticipate knocking down the most important shot in her program’s history.
Huhn’s fourth-quarter 3-pointer with 5:31 to play was P-W’s only field only over the final 11 minutes and 13 seconds Saturday, and only points during a 9 minute, 28-second stretch that saw the Pirates lead over Flint Hamady go from 11 to one with 1:45 to play. It also ended the reason the Pirates never lost the lead as they clinched the Division 3 championship with a 40-33 victory at Van Noord Arena.
Huhn also connected on all four of her free-throw attempts over the final 32 seconds as P-W completed a run that began with a trip to the Class C Final two years ago, followed by an appearance in the Semifinals last season.
“It just feels amazing to go out this way, because everyone on this team – all 16 girls – have worked so hard for this,” Huhn said, “In the offseason we’ve done so much improving our own skills, and I just feel like we work so well together. To come close sophomore and junior year and put the cherry on top my senior year, it’s just a great feeling.”
This P-W team was the 11th to reach the season’s final week, and followed Class C runners-up also in 1983 and 1984. The Pirates finished 27-1, their only defeat to Division 2 power Detroit Edison, which had beaten P-W in the last two playoff trips.
The Pirates led all but 56 seconds Saturday. But after pushing the lead to double digits during both the second and third quarters, it took just about everything the Pirates could offer to withstand a Hamady team with a significant size advantage and a defensive press that played a big part in P-W’s 22 turnovers – with half coming during the Hawks’ 13-3 second-half run to draw within one.
“We knew they had some speed, but we didn’t quite know how quick they were,” Hamady coach Keith Smith said. “Now that I look back at it, I probably should have brought the pressure a little earlier. But we did respect (Droste’s) play … but I think we got her a little rattled. And we were also trying to get her out of there when she got four fouls.”
As significant as navigating the pressure, the Pirates outrebounded Hamady 32-19 despite having only one player 6-foot and one more taller than 5-8. They did so with that 6-footer, Spitzley, playing 19 seconds over the last 8:49 before fouling out and six players grabbing between 4-7 rebounds apiece.
P-W had practiced playing with Spitzley or Droste fouled out – but Pirates coach Steve Eklund never anticipated that scenario becoming real-life in this game.
His players couldn’t have responded better.
Huhn’s 3-pointer was followed by Spitzley’s re-entry and then departure, and then Droste came back into the game at 3:43 to play. The teams took turns missing shots before junior guard Xeryia Tartt’s free throw pulled Hamady to within 32-31 with 1:45 to play.
The Hawks (21-6) grabbed the rebound off Tartt’s miss on the second free-throw attempt, but Droste stole the ball and was fouled trying to finish a break. She made a free throw to push the lead to two, and the Pirates followed with another stop when junior guard Emily Nurenberg ended up with the ball after Hamady lost its dribble attempting to tie the score. Droste ended up with possession, was fouled, and this time made both free throws to make the lead 35-31 with 42.5 seconds to play. The Pirates then limited the Hawks to one missed shot on three straight possessions, with Huhn twice grabbing rebounds during that shutdown stretch. They also made 8 of 10 free throws over the final 1:14.
“It wasn’t pretty, but we out-pointed them. We took care of the basketball at times, we made our free throws, and defensively we got stops,” Eklund said. “With 40 seconds left we were happy. We had the lead, we were at the free throw line, and I said, ‘Girls, I think we need three or four more stops.’ And I think we got three stops in the last 40 seconds.
“We drill every day, get a stop and score. Today was get a stop and free throws.”
Droste finished with 18 points, including 12 on free throws. Huhn had 10 points and six rebounds, and Spitzley had eight points. Junior guard Kiera Thelen scored two points but led the rebounding effort with seven.
“I just knew my teammates, the entire time, they had my back,” Droste said. “Me and Hannah both got into foul trouble, which really, it’s hard because you’re so used to being out there in tight situations. But we have such confidence in our teammates – we trust them so much that we know no matter what we can come out with the win.”
Tartt had 15 points and five of her team’s 14 steals to lead Hamady, which was playing in its first Final since finishing Class C runner-up in 2015.
PHOTOS: (Top) Pewamo-Westphalia players, including senior Rachel Huhn (far right), celebrate the team’s first MHSAA Finals title Saturday at Van Noord Arena. (Middle) The Pirates’ Ellie Droste tries to keep possession while a pair of Hamady players apply the pressure.