Record-Chasing Pittsford Again 20-0
February 23, 2018
By Doug Donnelly
Special for Second Half
Chris Hodos is up for a challenge. In fact, he and his Pittsford girls basketball have been preparing for it for weeks.
The Wildcats on Thursday completed their fourth consecutive 20-0 regular season. Overall, they have won 75 consecutive games, just three shy of the MHSAA record in girls basketball.
If they are going to break the state consecutive wins record and take a third consecutive MHSAA championship trophy home to Hillsdale County next month, they are going to have to do it a rung higher on Michigan’s girls basketball ladder. The Wildcats are Class C this year after claiming Class D titles the last two seasons.
Hodos knows the road will be tougher.
“I expected to go 20-0,” he said. “We lost two all-staters, and people saw that and figured there was no way we’d go 20-0 again. But, I knew what we had coming back.”
Chief among those returning Wildcats is 5-foot-7 senior guard Marissa Shaw, the team’s leading scorer at 13.6 points per game – and something of a thief. The Jackson College signee has nearly 400 steals in her career.
“She set our school record with 15 steals in a game this year,” Hodos said. “She’s had two triple-doubles with points, steals and assists. She’s been in double figures in assists four times. She’s a real aggressive player.”
Shaw has been on the varsity since her freshman year, playing three minutes in the 2015 Class D Final loss to St. Ignace. That was the last time Pittsford lost a game. All five starters this year have played in multiple MHSAA championship games.
It’s likely no team in the state can match that type of big-game experience.
“All five of my starters have been on the team for three years,” Hodos said. “They’ve been to the Breslin Center through all of this. They know about what it takes to get there and what it’s like to play there. They all have experience. That’s something you can’t teach.”
The deep tournament runs have meant several more weeks of practice than a typical high schooler will play. Pittsford’s played 15 postseason games over the past two seasons alone.
That big-game experience probably played a hand in one of Pittsford’s biggest regular-season wins this year – a 68-56 win over Tri-County Conference champion Morenci. The Class D Bulldogs – who feature a pair of 1,000-point scorers in Mady Schmitz and Daelyn Merillat – were up 10 at halftime. Hodos made a defensive adjustment. and the comeback was on. Pittsford forged a tie at 44-44 going into the fourth quarter and outscored Morenci by 12 during the final eight minutes.
“They are so disciplined,” Morenci coach Larry Bruce said. “They are never out of position on defense. I watched the tape on them four or five times. The girls are never out of position. They made a really good adjustment at halftime, and their depth got to us. They are solid.”
Pittsford won the Southern Central Athletic Association East by six games, going 17-0 in league play. But, that’s all over now. It’s time for the MHSAA tournament. The last time Pittsford played in Class C was 2014-15 when it was erased in the District Final by Adrian Madison.
This year’s Class C tournament starts Monday for Pittsford when it goes on the road to play Clinton, the District host.
As the saying goes, the 101-1 record over the past 102 games is thrown out the window when the tournament starts.
“We’ll run into some good teams,” Hodos said. “I have probably four or five potential teams that we could play on film. I like breaking down film and staying up all night.”
If any potential opponents are staying up all night watching Pittsford on film, they’ll notice something very familiar about the Wildcats’ offense. It’s the same one Hodos has used for at least a decade.
“I run a Bill Self offense, a high-low game,” he said, referring to the Kansas men’s basketball coach. “I’ve ran that since I was a JV coach, and it’s worked. We run it every year. People say you have to change things up or run something different, but, why, if its works?
"We get all kinds of different looks out of it, but that’s what it starts with. The girls know where to be. The repetition helps us. You see a lot of times where basketball players make bad passes. Often, it’s because they don’t know where someone is going to. They get lost in the play. We run the same thing. The girls know where each other will be.”
Besides Shaw, the other seniors for Pittsford are Hannah Patterson and Sydni Brunette, a 3-point sharpshooter. Junior Kennedy Chesney is a 53-percent field goal shooter averaging nearly eight points a game. Junior Alison Toner averages just under double figures. Hodos has three sophomores on the varsity, too.
“We do it more by committee this season,” he said. “We have a lot of girls contributing. That’s how I knew we’d be pretty good.”
Bruce, who’s coached off-and-on for 50 years, was impressed with what he saw in Pittsford last year and this season.
“They won’t embarrass themselves, I’m sure of that,” Bruce said. “People will have trouble with them. Shaw is really good, but after that there is no drop off for the next seven or eight girls. They all play well.”
Hodos is a Pittsford graduate who played football at Adrian College and returned to Hillsdale County to teach and coach. He currently works with students at the Hillsdale County Youth Home. He sometimes leans on his old college coach or other friends in the business for advice or just to talk about coaching. He’s been an assistant coach for more than 15 years with the Pittsford football team, running the defense.
“I try to get my knowledge from everywhere,” he said.
The record consecutive victory streak for boys basketball in Michigan ended this season when Powers North Central – winners of 84 straight – lost in December to Rapid River. The Jets’ is the longest streak in Michigan prep basketball history.
By beating Camden-Frontier on Thursday, Pittsford became tied with Flint Northern for second place on the all-time girls consecutive victory list with 75 straight wins. To tie Carney-Nadeau’s record of 78 straight, Pittsford will have to win the District. To break the record, they’ll have to win a Regional game.
That’s a long way off, but Hodos isn’t worried about it. He’s embracing it.
“It’s going to be a challenge,” he said. “It’s something different. I’m excited about it. I like scheduling different teams every year. A couple of years ago we played a couple of Class A schools that I found that would play us. It’s exciting.”
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 Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Pittsford’s Marissa Shaw brings the ball upcourt during last season’s Class D Semifinal win over Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart. (Middle) Wildcats coach Chris Hodos talks things over with his team during the championship game victory against Saginaw Michigan Lutheran Seminary.
Gooding & King Work to Fill SW Michigan's Officiating Ranks, Schedules
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
December 12, 2023
KALAMAZOO – Cheer them or boo them, without officials, there are no games. That’s just a fact in the sports world.
Two area men are tasked with supplying those officials for Southwest Michigan schools, and it is not always as easy as it seems.
Portage’s Todd Gooding is in charge of assigning football referees for 70 schools across eight leagues, with 500 officials on his staff.
Vicksburg’s Rob King assigns officials for girls and boys basketball in five leagues and has 290 men and women on his roster to work 1,100 games throughout the hoops season.
“We have six females on staff,” King said. “We’re looking to add more. I think the girls who are playing enjoy having a female ref on the court with them, plus it shows them they can do this, too.”
Although totals were dropping a few percentage points every year, the MHSAA still registered an average of 10,317 officials annually during the decade ending in 2019-20. But the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic that spring played a large part in a decrease in registered officials by 12 percent for 2020-21, down to 8,090.
The last two school years saw a bounce-back of four percent, and recruiting and retaining efforts continue. But Gooding and King – also veteran officials themselves, Gooding for 25 years and King for 24 – and their assigning colleagues across the state have the closest look at the effects of fewer officials as they work to schedule at the local level and make sure everything is covered.
Doing so gets even harder with unforeseen roadblocks.
One of those challenges for Gooding came in August when extreme heat forced most schools to reschedule or delay their football games.
“Everyone was trying to get their games in,” he said. “We were moving start times back, then we were moving days. Football is a little different than basketball or baseball because you can only play within so many days, so we were really squeezed against the schedule.
“I had a school or two reach out on Monday or Tuesday (before the Friday night game), so they looked ahead at the heat. Some of them waited, waited, waited, and then in some cases, it posed some big challenges because most of those crews had been spoken for.”
For a typical football Friday, Gooding staffs 30 or 35 games, “which is really difficult because everybody wants to play Friday night.”
Some referees in both football and basketball “double dip” by officiating games at freshman or junior varsity levels on nights other than Friday.
Gooding said at one time he hoped to go to seven officials for a football game, but with a shortage of officials, “Right now we’re just lucky to staff five in the games we have, and we’re still very short.
“Parents are a key component to a shortage of officials. A lot of it is more at the youth level, but everyone has to remember the sportsmanship aspect. Without officials there are no games, and sometimes we lose track of that, and that’s one reason there’s a shortage.”
Still, King noted that officiating provides more advantages than disadvantages.
“Everyone hears about the bad stuff, getting yelled at by fans and coaches, but those are so small,” he said.
“After a season of doing this, you learn to block out that stuff and realize it’s just part of the game. Fifty percent of people are mad at you every time you blow the whistle, so you get used to that.”
Pay raises in some leagues enticed many of those who “retired” to return, King said, but both he and Gooding agree the camaraderie developed while officiating is what makes it most special.
“It’s more about the time you spend on the floor with guys, in the locker room, driving to games, grabbing something to eat after the games, just talking about life, just building friendships,” King said. “That’s the part you remember.”
Gooding added some games stick in his memory more than others.
“My first varsity game (refereeing) was Lawton playing Saugatuck,” he said. “I show up and Channel 3 was there. I wondered what’s going on.
“Both schools were 0-8, both senior classes were 0-35. Somebody had to win, and it was my first varsity game. I think Saugatuck won, and it was close to 25 years ago.”
Another memory came as he officiated a basketball game.
“A girl from Benton Harbor (Kysre Gondrezick in 2016) had 72 points,” he said. “It’s in the record books. and you’re just one small part of that and you remember them.”
Officiating is not only for adults. Even teenagers still in high school can become referees as part of the MHSAA Legacy Program.
King recently hosted an officiating summit at Paw Paw for high school athletes.
“There are nine schools in the Wolverine Conference and six of them brought 10 to 15 kids,” he said. “Myself and another official presented on basketball. They also did something on other sports.
“We got the kids up blowing the whistles and doing some of the signals. Three reached out wanting to get involved.”
King said officiating is a great way to earn money, especially while in college.
“You’ll work maybe two or three hours at the most and make $150 to $300 depending on the level,” he said. “Your friends will have to work six-, seven-, eight-hour days to make that much money.
“You can also block your schedule. We have a software with a calendar on it. If there are days you know you can’t work because you have classes or other things, you just block those days out, so you control your own schedule.”
With training, freshmen and sophomores can work junior high/middle school games, and juniors and seniors are able to officiate at the freshman and junior varsity levels.
“Usually what we do is get you a mentor,” King said, “and you work with that mentor and make some money.”
Those Legacy officials hopefully continue in the avocation, eventually becoming the next mentors.
Officiating, like school sports in general, is a cycle that’s constantly in motion – both when it comes to filling the ranks and filling the schedule to cover games ahead.
For example, although football season is over, “I don’t know if there really is an offseason,” Gooding said. “Leagues are going to start giving me their schedules. We’ll get those into an Arbiter system. Everything’s assigned by Arbiter, a computer system where officials get their assignments.
“I’ll start evaluating the crews, reach out to the crew chiefs. They’ll let me know any changes in their crew dynamics. I’ll evaluate the year gone by, how they performed and then start getting ready to work on getting those games staffed. That will start after the new year.”
For more information on officiating, including the Legacy Program, go to the Officials page of MHSAA.com.
Pam 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) Todd Gooding, left and Rob King take a photo together while officiating the Division 4 Final at Ford Field in 2022. (Middle) Gooding signals during that contest between Goodrich and Grand Rapids South Christian. (Below) King officiates the 2019 Division 4 Boys Basketball Final at Breslin Center. (Photos courtesy of Gooding and King.)