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?’”
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.
Manistee Catholic Central's Excellence Bolstered by Experience
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
January 6, 2023
Playing three guards happens probably most at the high school level, but still may be considered an uncommon lineup.
And it’s unlikely more than one Michigan high school girls basketball team can boast of having all three guards on the court playing at least their fifth seasons at the varsity level.
Manistee Catholic Central can. And these guards, playing more like a family as some say, are ready to undo the feeling of last year’s season-ending loss to Brethren in the District Semifinal.
Due to the school’s tiny enrollment, MCC is allowed under MHSAA rules to have seventh and eighth graders on the roster as they’ve had for some time. So when the Sabres gather around the seniors including Leah Stickney, Kaylyn Johnson, Emily Miller, Abbey Logan and Ashley VanAelst during their pregame warm-up, they fire up around a lot of experience.
MCC went 14-5 last year and shared the West Michigan D League championship. They’re off to a 7-2 start as they host Walkerville tonight. Both losses this season were by just one point.
VanAelst is one of the guards and captains in the starting lineup. She joined the Sabres late in her in eighth grade season.
“I’ve grown up with this team,” VanAelst said. “They have been (there) for me throughout everything.
“I see them as the best family I could ever have,” she continued. “I love to call them my family.”
Being so much a part of each other’s lives, including school days, has bode well for the Sabres, VanAelst said.
“We have such a good bonding aspect,” she said. “When we’re on the court, we forget about all of our troubles and we come together.
“I like when we’re on the court, we’re all one.”
Stickney, a 5-foot-5 senior guard, is the team’s leading rebounder. She regularly starts in the three-guard formation with VanAelst and junior Grace Kidd. Johnson, the team’s leading scorer at 12.2 points per game, starts in the post.
Stickney, Johnson, Kidd, and junior Elizabeth Logan all played on the varsity team prior to entering the high school. The experienced lineup has coach Todd Erickson looking for an extended postseason run.
“They got the court time over the year to play at this level,” Erickson said. “We’ve been waiting for this team to come into their own.
“We’re not where we think we can be yet.”
The Sabres are moving south to Walkerville to start the postseason this year. They will vie for the District title there with Walkerville, Baldwin, Mason County Eastern, McBain Northern Michigan Christian and Pentwater.
MCC picked up a 44-18 win this week over Pentwater, a potential District opponent.
Summer camps in Petoskey and Gaylord, along with a summer YMCA league in Traverse City, helped the Sabres prepare for this season. VanAelst was one of the players leading the charge.
“I wanted to do something great,” VanAelst said. “I just really wanted to make myself better and be a leader out on the court and help my teammates along the way.
“It was more a team building aspect and how we can work together and become a better team,” she continued. “Instead of working on ourselves individually, we worked together.”
Over the years, Erickson’s teams have won a dozen District championships and three Regionals. His Sabers advanced to the Semifinals in 1999 before falling to eventual Class D champion Portland St. Patrick. The Sabres had only eight players on that roster.
Erickson took over the Sabers girls program during the middle of the 1992 season when the head coach at the time suddenly stepped down. Erickson coached both varsity and JV for the remainder of the year.
He left Manistee Catholic briefly to coach Manistee High for two seasons, posting a combined 45-3 record there with two District titles and a Regional championship. He later returned to Catholic Central after taking a year off.
Last winter, his players and the school honored Erickson for reaching the 400-win milestone.
With this postseason in mind, Erickson now has his team working on rebounding and free throw shooting.
“Our rebounding has to change,” Erickson. “When you’ve got three guards leading your rebounding, we have a problem.
“There is no reason for a 5-foot-5 guard leading your rebounding.”
Erickson noted his players responded to the rebounding focus in their latest win. And, he loves the growth in his guards.
“All three of those guards — Leah, Ashley and Grace — the have learned to play really well together,” he said. “Every time they play, they are getting stronger and stronger to each other.
“They look out for each other on the floor,” he went on. “They always know where the other two are.”
The Sabres also improved their free throw shooting in the win over Pentwater, especially Johnson.
“Kaylin took it to heart,” Erickson said. “She turned around to me at the end and she goes, ‘Coach, I was 4 for 4 at the free throw line.’
“I said, ‘That’s where you should be, 3-for-4 or 4-for-4.’”
Erickson’s coaching has spanned five decades, and he’s not the only coach in his family. His wife Jan has done some coaching. His daughters, Kelly and Katie, currently serve as assistant coaches for St. Joseph Our Lady of the Lake Catholic and Traverse City St. Francis, respectively.
The Sabres’ success has not gone unnoticed. Among those taking note is Mike Kanitz, who serves now as assistant coach at St. Francis with Katie Erickson.
Kanitz coached against Manistee Catholic when he was the head coach at Traverse City Christian. The Gladiators also saw the Sabres at camp and the YMCA league this summer.
“Coach (Todd) Erickson takes the talent that he has each year and makes them more talented,” Kanitz said. “He does a great job of developing teams.
“His teams are always competitive.”
Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Manistee Catholic Central’s Kaylyn Johnson lines up for a free throw. (Middle) MCC coach Todd Erickson talks things over with Leah Stickney (3). (Below) Ashley VanAelst (11) considers her options on offense against Central Lake. (Photos by Mitch Vosburg/Manistee News Advocate.)