Flushing Downs Champ to Reach 1st Final

March 17, 2017

By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor

EAST LANSING – Warren Cousino girls basketball coach Mike Lee saw a lot of his 2016 team in watching Flushing move past his current contender during Friday’s first Class A Semifinal at the Breslin Center.

The Patriots had stormed to their first MHSAA championship a year ago seemingly out of nowhere with an awe-inspiring run that remained the talk into this season.

Just as unheralded entering these playoffs, Flushing is one win way from accomplishing a similar feat after getting past Cousino and Miss Basketball finalist Kierra Fletcher 52-36.

The Semifinal was the Raiders’ first since 1976, and Saturday’s noon championship game against East Kentwood will be the program’s first appearance on the season’s final day.

“I felt that at the beginning we knew we were going to have to get respect,” Flushing senior forward Bre Perry said. “After we got out of the District, people were doubting us, but I felt that if we just stuck together, we’d be just fine. Because we know each other well, we play together as a team really well, we always have each other’s backs … (and) I knew if we stuck together, we’d be able to get very far.”

The Raiders really have been together for a while. They’ve played on the same teams since middle school, and Perry and seniors Kamryn Chappell and Lauren Newman are four-year varsity starters. Senior Carson Wilson joined them as a sophomore, and over the last three seasons the team is 66-7 with three league and two District titles plus the Regional championship won last week.

Flushing (23-3) didn’t lose a game during the Flint Metro League season, and its losses were to Class A top-five teams Saginaw Heritage and Midland Dow early and Class B No. 1 Ypsilanti Arbor Prep at the end of the regular season. The Raiders avenged that loss over Dow in the Regional Final and have broken opponents with a balanced offense and stifling defense that has given up 40 points in a game only three times.

“When you’ve never been here you’re certainly never overconfident in your ability to get here,” Flushing coach Larry Ford said of Breslin. “But watching these guys prior to seventh and eighth grade, and in middle school and then when they got into high school, this is the most athletic team I’ve ever coached in my 13 years as head coach at Flushing. Then they’ve got basketball skills to go with it, and they work so well together.”

Ford thought last year’s team was capable of making this run, but Perry – who will play next season at Temple University – tore a knee ligament and was lost for the end of the season.

And besides, 2015-16 belonged to Cousino and Fletcher, who enjoyed a similar under-the-radar status on the way to Breslin – but didn’t surprise anyone this winter.

Cousino entered the postseason ranked No. 2, and Fletcher – who will play at Georgia Tech – averaged 22.7 points, 13 rebounds, 6.2 assists, 5.2 steals and 2.1 blocks per game entering this week. She put up 30 points in Friday’s Semifinal despite being taken to the floor by a painful cramp just more than a minute into the second half.

But by then, Flushing already had set the tone.

The Raiders rode a 9-1 run over the end of the first quarter and start of the second and led by 13 at halftime. They scored one fewer point in the first quarter than Cousino did over the first two – and locked down the Patriots aside from Fletcher’s heroic run.

She scored all but one of Cousino’s 12 field goals. Minus Fletcher, Cousino made only one of 29 shots from the field as Wilson in particular led the suffocating effort. 

Flushing doesn’t have a player averaging more than 12 points per game, but Perry led in this one with 16 points and seven rebounds, with Newman scoring 14 points and junior Shelby Morrow adding 13.

Cousino admittedly knew this year’s run would be tougher, and the Patriots were up to the challenge winning a strong Macomb Area Conference Red before extending their MHSAA Tournament run to 14 straight wins.

“What this group was able to do over two years, from everyone pronouncing our name wrong … to this point, it was about remembering our name. No matter if the team was 1-19 we were facing that night or 20-0, we were going to get everyone’s best effort,” Lee said. “And (our players) knew that.”

“I feel a lot of pride. We didn’t end the season exactly the way we wanted to, but I wouldn’t have written this any other way,” Fletcher added. “Last year what we did was amazing. I think this year it’s even more amazing that we got back because people thought last year was a fluke. We used that as motivation to help us get back to Breslin. … Most people don’t get here once, so getting here twice is even better.”

The only championship banner hanging in Flushing’s gym celebrates the 1977 girls golf title. Every practice Newman noticed it, and figured there should be a basketball team up there as well.

These Raiders have their chance to become the first.

“It would be really special to be able to look back and say we went from seventh grade, to eighth grade, ninth, 10th, 11th, and we’ve been together this long and get to win this all together after all that time,” Perry said. “It would be amazing, after college, when we get back in touch (and say), ‘Remember when we got that ring?’”

Click for the full box score.

PHOTOS: (Top) Flushing's Kamryn Chappell works to get past Warren Cousino’s Aubrey Fetzer (5) on Friday. (Middle) Cousino’s Kierra Fletcher looks for an open teammate.

Paw Paw Hoops Heroes Closing in on Milestones, Rewriting School Record Book

By Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com

November 19, 2024

PAW PAW — With a basketball pedigree that goes back a generation, Paw Paw’s Grace Mitchell is one of two seniors closing in on personal and school records.

Southwest CorridorMitchell is just 164 points shy of joining the 1,000-point club.

“After my sophomore year I was over 500 (points), so I knew I could get another 500 my last two years,” said Mitchell, adding that the milestone is one of her long-time goals.

And she’s not the only one pursuing it.

Teammate AJ Rickli, a 6-foot-2 center/power forward, needs just 110 points to hit the 1,000-point mark.

Rickli stacked up her points in just over two seasons, after moving up from junior varsity near the end of her freshman year.

Scoring isn’t the only strength the players bring to the team.

Mitchell, a 5-10 guard, needs just four 3-pointers to break the school record of 156, something second-year head coach Dan Thornton said could happen when the Red Wolves open the season Dec. 3 by hosting Mattawan.

She holds the school’s season record for treys with 72 and swished eight in one game, tying another school record.

“I shoot a lot,” Mitchell said. “I’ve always like shooting the farther shots since I was little, but sophomore year I really got good at my 3-point shots.”

She is not a one-dimensional player, either, with 126 assists and 150 steals heading into her fourth varsity season.

That’s where the two seniors complement each other.

“She’s a guard; I’m a post,” Rickli said. “Where I slack, she picks up. Where she slacks, I pick up. I get her rebounds.”

Thornton said both players could reach other school milestones this season.

From left: Paw Paw coach Dan Thornton, Rickli and Mitchell headshots.“Grace potentially could be closing in on marks for steals, assists, on top of her shooting percentage from the free throw line and 3-point line,” he said, adding that Rickli could break the records for rebounds and blocks.

The coach is not surprised he has two players heading into 1,000-point territory.

“Last year we averaged about 75 points per game, and we had four different players average about double figures,” he said. “There were a lot of games where we’d get three, four and some games six people in double figures.

“It also meant everyone was scoring between 10 and 13 or 14 points per game. It made it very challenging on opposing defenses because if they focus too much on one, the other four would get very favorable matchups.”

Just two days into practice, Thornton said he plans to fill out his roster after Wednesday’s practice, laughing, “(Grace and AJ) both have a chance to make varsity.”

The Red Wolves graduated five seniors in the spring, two of them starters, from last year’s 22-3 team that advanced to a Division 2 District Final.

“It’s going to take a lot of determination and drive from everybody on the team (to move past Districts),” Rickli said. “Everybody has to contribute. Everybody has to want it the same, and we’ve got to have a team goal. And we will.”

Thornton will rely on Rickli and Mitchell for leadership, especially for those brought up from the junior varsity team.

“The two girls bring veteran leadership,” Thornton said. “They’ve both been through playing on varsity, playing in big games for a number of years.

“Both have had huge success over the years. I expect them to help nurture along younger players, guide them through our goals throughout the season.”

Rickli said the most important thing for new players is to let them know their roles.

“I’ll help the posts in their position. Grace will help the guards in their position and give them confidence,” Rickli said. “We’ll help them in practice. We’re not going to take it easy on them, because that won’t help them at all. We’ll push them in practice to get them used to varsity play.”

'Batman and Superman'

Rickli and Mitchell have been best friends and on the same hoops teams since second grade.

“We work really good together because we’re each other’s best friend, and we’ve played together forever,” Mitchell said. “We know what each other wants.

"I know how to get (the ball) in to her, and she knows when to kick it out to me. When I miss my shot, she gets my rebound and puts it back up, so it works out pretty good.”

Rickli, whose formal first name is Arin Jolyn, also plays volleyball and competes in the shot put and discus, but prefers basketball.

“Basketball just comes to me easier than the other sports,” she said. “I like the contact sports.”

Mitchell, who has committed to Alma College for golf and basketball, is keeping up her family hoops tradition.

“She comes from a very, very heavy basketball family,” said Thornton, who has been involved in coaching for 35 years and needs just 12 more varsity wins for 400. “Her father (Rick Mitchell) is legendary in basketball throughout most of Southwest Michigan. Her Uncle Gary (Mitchell) was a longtime coach (at Paw Paw), the same as her father, who is in the Paw Paw Hall of Fame.

“To have that kind of constant exposure at a young age to basketball from her family, be it her siblings or uncle or dad, probably helped Grace.”

Both girls are unselfish and supportive of their teammates, he said, adding, “They do a good job helping each other be successful. They’re very much Batman and Superman, you could say, because one of them excels in a certain area of the game and the other excels in another area. 

“The fact that the players, the team, aren’t selfish really speaks to the parenting with these players, how they’ve been raised and how they are willing to give up a good shot for themselves to give someone else a great shot.”

Pam ShebestPam Shebest served as a sportswriter at the Kalamazoo Gazette from 1985-2009 after 11 years part-time with the Gazette while teaching French and English at White Pigeon High School. She can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Van Buren counties.

PHOTOS (Top) At left, Paw Paw senior AJ Rickli gets a shot up against Otsego last season; at right, senior Grace Mitchell releases a jumper. (Middle) From left: Paw Paw coach Dan Thornton, Rickli and Mitchell. (Action photos by René Rodriguez; head shots by Pam Shebest.)