Page 10 — Thursday, February 29, 2024 — The Hastings Banner
212527
PUBLIC NOTICECity of Hastings
2024 BOARD OF REVIEW MEETING SCHEDULE
The City of Hastings Board of Review for 2024 will be held at
Hastings City Hall, 201 E State St, on the following dates:Organizational Meeting: March 5th, 1:00 pmAppeal Hearings:
Tuesday, March 12th, 3:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Wednesday, March 13th, 10:00 am to 4:00 pmMeetings are by Appointment to schedule, contact: City Hall @ ph. 269-945-The Board of Review will meet as many more days as deemed necessary to hear
questions, protests and to equalize the 2024 assessments.By City Resolution, residents are able to protest by letter, provided the protest
letter is received prior to March 11th, 2024.The tentative ratios and the estimated multipliers for each class
of real property and personal property for 2024 are as follows:Commercial .........................49.34 ...........1.
Residential ..........................44.71 ...........1.
Industrial .............................49.02 ...........1.
Agricultural ..........................48.50 ...........1.
Personal Property ...............50.00 ...........1.Americans with Disabilities (ADA) NoticeThe City of Hastings will provide necessary reasonable services to individuals with
disabilities at the Board of Review meetings upon 3-day notice.Contact: Sarah Moyer-Cale 269-945-Lakewood falls to Belding in
Division 2 district opener
Jayson Bussa
Editor
The seniors on this year’s Lakewood boys
basketball team figured if they were going to
go out, then they were going out scoring.
With Monday evening’s Division 2 District
opener at Ionia High School all but decided in
favor of the Vikings’ opponent, Eli Jablonski
spotted up for a three-pointer and knocked it
down with 22 seconds left in the game.
Fellow senior Garrett Feighan swiped the
ensuing inbound pass and laid it up as the
clock wound down.
“With it being my last game, I wanted to
get out on the court as much as I could,”
Jablonski said. “Try to play as much as I can
and as hard as I can while I was out there.”
Unfortunately for the Vikings, a deep early
hole proved too much to climb out of as
Lakewood ended its season with a 68-37 loss
to the Belding Black Knights.
The Vikings finished a volatile season with
a 4-19 record, plagued by injuries and absenc-
es throughout the year. Jablonski and fellow
seniors on the roster – Blake Price, Landon
Makley and Feighan – have ended their
careers in a Vikings uniform.
“Going into the game, it was a little calmer
nerves (having played in the postseason
before) but it hurts way worse being my
senior year and not knowing if I’ll step on the
court again,” Jablonski said. “...It just hurts.”
The Vikings went toe-to-toe with the Black
Knights (16-7) in short stretches of the sec-
ond half, but most of the damage had already
been done in the first half, where Belding
opened the game with an 11-0 spurt.
The Black Knights were fueled by a two-
prong attack – Joe Coles inside and the
game’s leading scorer Gavin Andres on the
perimeter. Coles pummeled the Vikings
inside for eight first-quarter points. He fin-
ished with 14 points.
Lakewood’s first-year coach Jason Solgat
said that he started his team out in a trian-
gle-and-two defense that keyed in on Beld-
ing’s two perimeter shooters but had to sag
off to account for Coles.
“We drew that down on paper right away;
we knew they had two shooters and one big,”
Solgat said. “That’s why we played triangle
and two out of the gates but then [Coles] ate
us alive pretty quickly. We took away the
shooters and they ate us in the paint. We went
back to defending in the paint and the shoot-
ers did what they do against a zone.”
A Logan Faulkner three-ball and a turn-
around by Makley capped the first quarter
with a 14-5 score in advantage of Belding.The Vikings were even quieter on offense
in the second quarter, with a lone three-ball
from Faulkner while Belding’s Andres caught
fire from the perimeter. The Black Knights
held a 28-8 advantage at the break and
Andres finished the game with 26 points.
On defense, Belding packed the interior
with a zone, stopping the Vikings from pene-
trating in the first half and forcing them to
settle for three-pointers. In the second half,
Solgat said his team worked the inside of the
zone more effectively.
“The zone wasn’t moving; they were pack-
ing it in,” Solgat said. “But if you can get
behind the two guys and draw the other three
up, we started to do that. We eventually said
it’s a green light to start chucking shots. We
don’t have time to sit around. We were
already chasing – we put ourselves in a deep
hole. We shot a little bit better in the second
half. I thought we played with more intensity
with loose balls.”
That half is when Jablonski scored all of
his team-high 13 points. Faulkner finished
the game with 11 points for the Vikings, as
well.With a year under his belt, Solgat said that
the key for the team will be to establish an
offseason regimen – and he is working along-
side of the school’s football and baseball
coaches to plan it out.
“Now the guys know they have a summer
schedule. That’s what we talked about is
going to be the X factor,” Solgat said. “Bring-
ing in those new eighth graders, mixing them
in, the seniors we’ll cast away but they can
come back and play open gym and let the
herd naturally weed itself out through the
summer.”
“Your tryouts shouldn’t be two days in
October. I want to see these tryouts happen
all year round where we know what this team
looks like going in,” Solgat added.
Through the up-and-down season, though,
Solgat said that he was struck by the commu-
nity support.
“The community backing has been great,”
he said. “It’s crazy to say we can walk out of
a locker room having a four-win season and I
still have parents that want to talk in a posi-
tive way. No one has gone at me sideways,
which means we’re doing something right.”Final game boosts HHS girls into bowling finals
Brett Bremer
Sports Editor
The Hastings girls picked a great time to
fire the second best game of the afternoon.
The Saxon varsity girls’ bowling team
scored a 708 score in the last of two regular
team games at the MHSAA Division 2 Team
Regional at Spectrum Lanes in Wyoming
Friday to jump Wayland and Otsego in the
standings a qualify for a spot in this Friday’s
MHSAA Division 2 Team Bowling Finals at
Century Bowl in Waterford.
Hastings also had senior ally Herder from
the girls’ team and Hunter Pennington and
Miles Lipsey from the boys’ team qualify for
the state finals with their top seven finishes in
the MHSAA Division 2 Individual Bowling
Regional back at Spectrum Lanes Saturday.
In the team competition Friday, the top two
teams through eight Baker and two regular
games qualified for the state finals. The Unity
Christian girls won the regional title with an
overall score of 2,668 pins. Those Crusaders
basically sealed their championship with a
score of 777 in the first regular game which
was 69 pins better than any other girls’ team
managed in a regular game at the competition.
The Hastings girls rolled a 658 in their first
regular game to bump their total for the day
to that point to 1,799 pins. Wayland entered
the final regular game with a score of 1,
and Otsego sat at 1,821 at that point.
The Saxon girls broke out with a 708 in that
second regular game to secure their runner-up
spot. Otsego rolled a 616 and Wayland a 616
to finish third and fourth respectively. The
Hastings girls had an overall score of 2,
ahead of Otsego 2,437 and Wayland 2,424.
The Hastings girls had high scores of 171
and 169 among their eight Baker games.
Thornapple Kellogg placed ninth in the
girls’ team standings.
The boys’ regional title went to the Forest
Hills Eastern guys who had a total pin-fall of
3,278 for the day. Unity Christian was second
at 3,084 with Wayland third at 2,944. The
Hastings boys were seventh on the day and
the Thornapple Kellogg boys tenth in a field
of 13 teams.The team performance for the Saxons
included strong performances from Heaven
Simmet, Kaylin Schild, Jen Stoline, Megan
Ramey and Mya Norman as well as Herder.
Back at Spectrum Saturday, Herder scored
another runner-up finish. Only Unity Chris-
tian sophomore Jaydan Blouw was better
than Herder in the individual contest – best-
ing Herder by just 14 pins over the course of
six regular games. Herder made things inter-
esting by closing out her day with scores of
200 and 202 in the fifth and sixth games.
Blouw had a high single game of 210 early
on in the competition. Her senior teammate
Jennifer Mohr also had a high-game of 210.
Those were the only four games of 200 or
better in the whole competition.
Blouw had an overall score of 1,045 ahead
of Herder 1,031, Mohr 998 and Unity Chris-
tian senior Nat Mercer who rolled a 949. The
top seven state qualifiers also included Low-
ell junior Cadence Dewit, Forest Hills East-
ern junior Emilee Nowicki and Wayland
junior Haven Baker.
The Saxons’ Simmet was the top girl on
the outside looking in. She placed eighth
with an overall score of 911, a mark 27 pins
shy of Baker’s final total in the seventh-place
spot.The Saxon team also had Ramey place
20th, Stoline 24th, Shild 26th and Norman
54th in a field of 70 bowlers.
The top finish for the Thornapple Kellogg
girls came from sophomore Jenna Robinett
who was 33rd.
In the boys’ individual competition, the
Saxon juniors Pennington and Lipsey placed
third and fourth respectively. Pennington had
high games of 220, 213 and 209 among his
six. Lipsey had top tallies of 210, 194 and- Lipsey is now a two-time state qualifier.
Grand Rapids Christian senior Zeke Heer-
ema was the individual regional champion
with an overall score of 1,360 ahead of Forest
Hills Central senior Weston Baldwin who had
a tally of 1,180. Pennington was just behind
the regional runner-up with a score of 1,
and Lipsey had a score of 1,119.
The other three state qualifiers from the
region were Forest Hills Eastern freshman
Evan Nowicki, Lowell senior Caden Dennie
and Wayland junior Kyle Vaness.
The Saxon team had senior Cohen James
14th. His final score of 1,042 was just 30 pins
behind Vaness, who was seventh and the last
of the state qualifiers.
Hastings also had senior Austin Henman
27th, junior Deagan Wilkins 39th and senior
Kenny Vastine 53rd on the day.
Thornapple Kellogg was led by sophomore
Landen England who placed 49th overall.Lakewood’s Troy Acker looks to get around the wide-framed Joe Coles of Belding
on Monday during the Vikings’ 68-37 loss to the Black Knights. (Photo by Jayson
Bussa)212773_Saxon senior Ally Herder fires her ball down the alley during her team's day at
Spectrum Lanes Thursday for the MHSAA Division 2 Team Regional Tournament. The
Hastings girls placed second to qualify for the team state finals, and Herder qualified
for the state singles tournament too. (Photo by Brett Bremer)Saxon junior Miles Lipsey preps his ball for a turn during the MHSAA Division 2
Team Regional at Spectrum Lanes in Wyoming Thursday, Feb. 22. (Photo by Brett
Bremer)Hastings junior Hunter Pennington
takes a warm-up turn before the start of
his team's MHSAA Division 2 Team
Regional at Spectrum Lanes in Wyoming
Thursday. (Photo by Brett Bremer)