Goodrich Gains Spot in All-Flint Final
March 15, 2013
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – On paper, at least, there were a few semi-viable reasons to not forecast Goodrich returning to Saturday’s Class B championship game at the Breslin Center.
Most of them centered on multiple injured starters, including Penn State recruit Aketra Sevillian, who never got on the floor. And after a perfect 2011-12 season, the Martians lost three games this winter – fantastic for most teams, but just a cut below what Goodrich had accomplished before.
But senior Taylor Gleason never bought any of it. She knew all along how this month would play out.
She and her teammates took another giant step in that plan Friday, downing No. 7 Grand Rapids South Christian 57-43 to advance to the title game for the second straight season – and this time set up an all-Flint Final against Powers Catholic.
“I didn’t once doubt it, even though we had three starters go down,” Gleason said. “I knew we could do this for them, we could do this for our community, We could do this, no doubt.”
“I wasn’t as sure as Taylor,” Goodrich coach Jason Gray added, Gleason and sophomore guard Tania Davis at his sides. “But these two really make it easy. They make so much happen for us. They make it so easy for their teammates. They stepped up to completely another level this year.”
The No. 3 Martians will face Powers at 6 p.m. in the day’s final championship game. The two met in District play a year ago, but found themselves on opposite sides of the bracket when lines were drawn for this season.
Goodrich’s 2012 championship further affirmed the program as one of the state’s current elite. But Powers has won four titles and long ruled Flint basketball. Late Friday night, the social media buzz already was beginning to heat up.
As they have throughout this season, Gleason and Davis led the way in their Semifinal as the Martians never trailed after the game’s first five minutes. Davis finished with 23 points and five steals, despite a hard fall that resulted in a bruised knee and a few jammed fingers. And Gleason – the Miss Basketball runner-up this week and an Illinois recruit – had 21 points, six rebounds, five assists and six steals.
The pair has played together since Gleason was in eighth grade and Davis in sixth, and their deep-rooted on-court chemistry has paid off all the more this season – as has been necessary.
“My mindset coming in (to the season) was to feed off Taylor and Kiki (Sevillian’s) energy. When Kiki went down, my whole mindset went from supporting them to stepping up and creating for myself and making my team feed off my energy,” Davis said. “I’ve really stepped into my leadership role. ... Me and Taylor both, we’re just doing an awesome job. And both of our mindsets have changed from just scoring to we have to score for us to win.”
Senior forward Anna Timmer led South Christian with eight points, nine rebounds and four assists, and the Sailors as a team outrebounded Goodrich 35-26.
But other numbers being equal or close (both had 19 field goals and South Christian just five more turnovers), Goodrich took a definite edge on free-throw shooting making 15 of 23 compared to South Christian's 2 of 5.
“We knew who their players were. They’re gamers. We tried to stop (Gleason). We tried to make things happen. We just kinda came out slow,” South Christian coach Jim DuBruyn said. “Maybe we had nervous jitters out there. They got a little lead, pulled to 5-4, and before I knew it, it was 8-4 and then it was 11-4. We had too many lulls in there. Defensively, we’ve held most teams to 33 points, but they were just a step quicker at times.”
South Christian finished 24-2, increasing its win total for the third straight season and also winning its Regional for the first time since 2004.
Ties between Saturday’s championship game opponents came to light quickly after Friday’s last game was done. Gleason’s aunt Aimee Pearson was a standout at Powers from 1995-98 and is tied for 14th-most career rebounds, with 1,009, in the MHSAA record book.
Although they don’t know each other well, Gray and Powers coach Thom Staudacher live in the same neighborhood. And Saturday surely will feel like a neighborhood clash between friendly rivals from one of the state’s traditional basketball power bases.
“We’re the two elite programs in our county, and we look to them as … they’ve won a few more state titles than we have,” Gray said. “They’re still the big dogs in the long run."
“We have a nice healthy rivalry. We’ve got rabid fans on both sides. This has the opportunity to be a real special environment (Saturday) night.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Goodrich's Tania Davis prepares to shoot a free throw during Friday's Semifinal win over Grand Rapids South Christian. (Middle) Goodrich's Katrina Ellis works against South Christian's Kayla Diemer (right) for rebounding position. (Photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)
Ewen-Trout Creek Grad Rekindles Memories of 'The Barn' in 8-Part Docu-Series
By
Jon Ross
MHSAA Director of Broadcast Properties
February 7, 2023
It was known as “The Barn.” And it was home to the 1972 Class D boys basketball champion, the 1973 Class D girls basketball champion and the 1982 Class D boys basketball runners-up.
The Upper Peninsula’s all-time winningest female basketball coach coached at The Barn, as did the Upper Peninsula’s all-time winningest male basketball coach. And when Ewen-Trout Creek advanced to the 2022 Division 4 Final, its roster was littered with names from E-TC’s past:
► Leading scorer Jaden Borseth’s dad played on the 1995 team that advanced to the Class D Regional Final.
► Kelsey Jilek’s dad played on the 1992 team.
► Brendan Polkky’s dad is currently an assistant coach for E-TC and played on the 1991 team that also advanced to the Class D Regional Final.
► Caden Besonen’s dad Dave starred on the 1982 state runner-up team. Caden’s uncle Brad is the E-TC head coach. And Brad’s dad, Bryan, played on the 1972 championship team.
The Barn hosted its final E-TC game in 1998 and is now owned by Gary Fors, who also played on the 1972 title team. It’s now a community gym of sorts, and many members of the 2022 team worked out there growing up.
E-TC grad Kristin Ojaniemi – an award-winning documentary film maker and photographer, and the TV producer and host of “Discovering” for 906 Outdoors – is taking a look at the history of “The Barn” as well as its ties to the 2022 team in an eight-part series called “Born in the Barn.” The first two parts are complete, and the entire series will be available to view at KristinOjaniemi.com.
I had a chance to ask Ojaniemi about the project and why it’s so special to so many people.
Kristin, how did you come up with the idea to document the history of The Barn?
The idea to document the history of The Barn and E-TC basketball developed over time. Five years ago I had a conversation with Dan Truckey of the Beaumier Heritage Center at Northern Michigan University, and when I told him where I went to high school, we got on the topic of basketball and how E-TC was a powerhouse and that "there must be something in the water" here. Fast forward to 2021, and I saw on Facebook some photos of the inside of The Barn and all the newspapers Gary Fors had lined the walls with, sort of like a museum. February of 2022 I realized it was 50 years since the 1972 boys state championship and 40 years since the 1982 state runner-up seasons. I like anniversaries in history and thought it would be the perfect time to do some sort of documentary. Originally my focus was Gary and The Barn and more of the 70s and 80s boys and girls seasons, but once the 2022 boys started advancing in the tournament, that obviously changed.
What did the 2022 team’s run to the Finals mean to the players from the ’72 and ’82 teams?
The 2022 run meant a lot to the players of '72 and '82 because many of those boys are sons, grandsons, great-nephews of those guys. Bryan Besonen of the '72 team is coach Brad Besonen's father. Many of them traveled to every tournament game, and watching the 2022 season brought back memories of their glory days. They're definitely very proud of the 2022 team and the tradition that E-TC has continued through the years. Watching them watch those games was just as fun as watching the court. The 2022 team's run to the Finals meant a lot to the whole community. So many others traveled all the way to Lansing to cheer them on, and there is just a ton of pride in this team. I went to the banner unveiling a few weeks ago, and it was a huge crowd at the game to watch those few seconds of history being made.
What is your history with The Barn?
I graduated from Ewen-Trout Creek in 2000. We were in the "new" school then, but I spent four years – seventh-10th grade – in the "old" school, which had so much more character than the new one! I did play basketball seventh-10th – junior high and junior varsity. I was a benchwarmer most of those years. I loved the game but didn't spend any time offseason playing or practicing like others. I was also a cheerleader those years too, and if you look closely at one of the newspaper photos from the last game in the Barn, I'm in the background. Ha ha! This was back when girls basketball was in the fall and boys in the winter, so you could do both. As others in the documentary mention, The Barn was also where you hung out at lunch, and gym class was in there, and homecoming activities. Filming in there brought back a lot of memories.
What did Nancy Osier (U.P.’s winningest female basketball coach) and Tom Caudill (U.P.’s winningest male basketball coach) think made The Barn such a difficult place for opposing teams to play?
Thinking back to Nancy and Tom's interviews, I think the difficulty for other teams really boiled down to the atmosphere and the E-TC fans and that intimidation factor. E-TC had the ultimate homecourt advantage in The Barn, and their players spent hours upon hours practicing on that floor. And the school's history and tradition of rarely losing a home game is also intimidating.
There’s obviously a lot of family ties from the 2022 team to earlier teams – and it was the 50th anniversary of the ’72 win – did they feel more pressure along the way because of that?
I think the 2022 boys had this feeling that they wanted to one-up their grandfathers/fathers. I think it was Kelsey Jilek that told his grandfather, George Hardes (1972), that they had one more game in their schedule so they could potentially have a better record if they won all their games. But none of them came out and mentioned that the anniversary put pressure on them, but I’m sure it was there. They set out to win it all from the beginning and put the work in, and it paid off. There are a lot of parallels in these winning seasons.
When will the next part of the series be released?
Part 3, I should have done by the end of February. Part 3 focuses on the 1973 girls state champs; 1973 was the first year there was a state final for girls basketball after Title IX, and E-TC won the Class D title. And then I plan to release each part every two months with the final, Part 8, done by the end of 2023. This is just a fun hobby/personal project, I guess you'd say, so I only have so much time to dedicate to it after all my "real" work.
(PHOTOS of "The Barn" courtesy of Kristin Ojaniemi.)