Boys Basketball - On To The Semifinals!

We are cruising through the district play and have arrived at the quarterfinal round! There have been a few upsets and plenty of great basketball. One week

We are cruising through the district play and have arrived at the quarterfinal round! 

There have been a few upsets and plenty of great basketball. One week from today we will arrive at the semifinals and the championship games are on the 27th. There isn’t a whole lot of time left for teams to get ready for the next round of games and try to continue their season. Let’s take a look at the action from the past week.

Coach Cottrell’s Blowout of the Week

Battle Creek St. Phillip 72 Marshall Academy17 (55 points)

The Tigers won their first district title since 2007 in this lopsided win. It was 24-4 after the first quarter and St. Phillip never looked back. Chris Riley scored 13 points and pulled down eight boards. Conor Reilly scored 10. Jason Lowe led Marshall Academy with six of the team’s 17 points.

High Score of the Week

Holland Christian 92 East Grand Rapids 85 (177 points)

It took two overtime periods, but the Maroons of Holland Christian finally put away the East Grand Rapids Pioneers. Brett Konyndyk had a team best 34 points. He also hit a three pointer as regulation was about to end that tied the score at 72. 12 of his points came in the fourth quarter. Colin Voss scored 32 points and had 13 rebounds in the losing effort for East Grand Rapids.

Rudyard 91 Gwinn 86 (177 points)

There might have been a different outcome had Gwinn played better in the first quarter. Luke Ghiardi had 17 points in the losing effort. Matthew Sinnaeve and Kyle Fowler each scored 10. Arik Hesselink scored 25 for Rudyard. The Bulldogs shot 50% from the free throw line (20 of 40) but kept Gwinn from winning their first regional title since 1995. There were 36 turnovers in the game.

Low Score of the Week

Pontiac Notre Dame Prep 38 Macomb Lutheran North 33 (71 points)

Kellen McCormic had 16 points for Notre Dame Prep. Danny Dulapa and Joe DeMartis each scored nine. Zach Bielecki scored 11 for Lutheran North. JJ McGarth scored seven in the losing effort.

Richland Gull Lake 42 Stevensville Lakeshore 29 (71 points)

There wasn’t a whole lot of offense in this game. That’s not because both teams were icy on offense, it was due to the fact that both defenses came to play. Gull Lake had more rebounds than Lakeshore, holding a 39-27 advantage. Trenton Messer scored 17 points and blocked six shots.

Grand Haven 40 Traverse City West 31 (71 points)

This was another game where defense was the name of the game. Nate VanArendonk scored 14 points and Isiah Law had 13. Nine of his points were from three point land.  These two accounted for nine of the team’s 10 field goals made. Neither team shot particularly well. TC West shot 10 of 40 from the field and Grand Haven also only hit 10 shots. The difference might have been that Grand Haven nailed 16 of their 23 free throws. The Titans only had five opportunities to shoot free throws and hit three of them. Evan Shultz had 15 points for the Titans.