Page 16 — Thursday, April 1, 2021 — The Hastings BannerVikes can’t slow down against Sexton in district semi’s
Brett Bremer
Sports Editor
There are a lot of things to be pleased about
from the 2020-2021 Lakewood varsity boys’
basketball season.
The final performance of the season isn’t
one of them though.
The Lakewood varsity boys’ basketball
team was bumped from the Division 2 state
tournament by Lansing Sexton in the district
semifinals at Ionia High School Thursday,
71-52. Lakewood struggled with the Big
Red’s speed and athleticism on the press
break, and it is Sexton that got to return to
Ionia Saturday to face the host Bulldogs in the
district final (which Ionia won 58-49).
The Lakewood boys close the season with
a 10-8 record - the team’s second ten-win
season in a row and first winning season since
the winter of 2014-15 which was its first in
the Greater Lansing Activities Conference.
The Vikings had an 8-4 performance in the
GLAC this season which put them in a tie for
third in the final conference standings.
“Our seniors, I’m gonna miss them,”
Lakewood head coach Chris Duits said.
“Lakewood hadn’t had a ten-win season in
quite some time and then these seniors had
back-to-back ten win seasons. That was a step
in the right direction. We will be returning a
good group of guys [next season.]”
Duits said that a couple conference ball-
games with Leslie were the only ones that
came close to preparing his guys for the kind
of ballgame they found themselves in against
the now 3-12 Sexton boys.
“When you play a team that is up-tempo
like this, they speed you up and they speed up
your brain,” Duits said. “In our league, we are
not used to this type of speed. When we play
somebody with this type of speed it is hard for
us to slow our brains down and just run our
stuff that we do every day. We never ran our
offense the whole first half. We never got into
our offense.
“The game plan was to break their press,
and if we have the numbers we attack the rim.
If we don’t have the numbers, we bring it
back out and set up our offense. When we did
break it and we didn’t have the numbers we
still tried to force it inside, and then we had
wasted possessions.”
The turnovers against the press oftentimes
were passes that went straight into the hands
of Sexton defenders who then went the other
way for lay-ups.
Sexton led 16-6 at the end of the first quar-
ter and carried an advantage the entire night.
Lakewood got to within four early in the sec-
ond quarter thanks to a buckets by Brady
Gawne and Jayce Cusack and a steal and lay-
up by Nathan Willette.
Sexton answered right back with a 6-0 run
of its own that was spurred by a couple Viking
turnovers. A couple of three-pointers by
Gawne around the two-minute mark of the
first half kept things from getting out of hand,
but the final minute of the first half was a
disaster for the Vikings.Sexton turned a ten-point lead to an
18-point lead fast. Sexton beat the Viking
press easily following a time-out and got a
lay-up for Zyon Adams and soon after
Da’quarious Alexander knocked down a pair
of free throws. A Viking turnover led to a
bucket by Sexton’s Ronald Turnley, and in the
end Turnley managed to cap off the 8-0 run
for his team by catching an inbound pass from
under his own basket with 3.6 seconds left on
the clock and dribble the length of the court
for a floater that found its mark. Sexton led40-22 at the half.
A couple buckets by Gawne gave the
Vikings a bit of momentum and had them
within 13 points with a minute to play in the
third quarter, but Jy’Reyion Glasscoe scored
for Sexton inside and the Vikings turned the
ball over under their own basket twice leading
to lay-ups by Turnley. Sexton led 57-38 going
into the fourth quarter.
“We were doing okay, but then we threw it
away twice on the inbounds pass for lay-ups
and we just couldn’t recover,” Duits said.
“They played with more energy. They played
to win. We didn’t.”
Gawne finished with a game-high 18 pointsfor Lakewood. Cusack, who suffered a leg
injury that took him out of the game for a bit
in the third quarter, finished with 14. Willette
had nine points for the Vikings and Denny
Sauers and Logan Arias chipped in four points
apiece.
Turnley led Sexton with 21 points and
senior center Commodre Joy had 11. Sexton
spread the scoring around. Alexander had
eight points, while Alvin Walker, Charleston
Rogers and Dontal Wright had seven points
apiece and Zyon Adams added six.
Ionia held on for a 61-60 win over Lansing
Catholic in the first district semifinal of the
evening Thursday in Ionia.Price dives his way into
top 16 at D1 State Finals
Brett Bremer
Sports Editor
Barry County Barracuda senior diver Gram
Price extended his season as long as he could
Friday at the Division 1 Lower Peninsula
Swimming and Diving Finals hosted by
Hudsonville High School.
Price scored his way through the prelimi-
nary and semifinal rounds to compete with the
16 best D1 divers in the state, finishing 15th
overall in a field that opened with 36 divers
Friday. He finished the day with an 11-dive
score of 296.25 points.
Price was the OK Rainbow Tier II
Conference runner-up, earning all-conference
honors, this winter. He earned his state finals
spot with a ninth-place finish at the Division
1 Regional Diving competition at East
Kentwood High School March 18 where he
totaled a score of 317.05 points. Teammate
Blake Sheldon was 12th at the regional, just
missing the state finals cut.
Price has been a four-year member of the
Delton Kellogg/Thornapple Kellogg/Hastings
varsity boys’ swimming and diving program
now known as the Barry County Barracudas,
and spent seven years diving with Barry
County Barracudas diving coach Todd Bates
in the Hastings Community Diving Club. He
was the OK Tier II Conference champion in
diving as a junior.
Price’s two points earned Friday put the
Barracuda program in 34th-place among the
37 teams that scored at the finals.
Ann Arbor Pioneer’s Cole Tremewan won
the D1 diving championship with an overall
score of 449.05 points. New Baltimore Anchor
Bay had two guys in the top four, with Adam
Schmehl the state runner-up at 410.95 and
Edin DeHooghe fourth at 392.85. Waterford
United’s Alex Poulin was the third-place fin-
isher with a score of 394.40.
Tremewan and Ann Arbor Pioneer domi-
nated the weekend in Hudsonville, finishing
the swimming competition on Saturday with a
score of 369 points. It is Pioneer’s fifth
Division 1 state championship, but first since
2009.
West Ottawa, the 2019 state champion, was
a distant second-place with 233.5 points. The
2020 Division 1 State Finals were not com-
pleted due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Saline placed third over the weekend with
230 points, ahead of Detroit Catholic Central
225, Northville 209, Macomb Dakota 112,
Rochester 98, Brighton 97.5, Troy 91 and
Grand Haven 76 in the top ten. The hosts from
Hudsonville were 11th with 58 points.
Pioneer won two of the first three races
with senior Matthew Segal taking the 200-
yard freestyle in 1 minute 38.24 seconds and
junior teammate Ryan Hume the 200-yard
individual medley in 1:50.37. Hume would
add a runner-up finish in the 500-yard free-
style on the day. Saline had three of the five
fastest 500-yard freestylers at the meet.
Segal tacked on a win in the 100-yard
breaststroke with a time of 53.26 seconds too
and was a part of two runner-up relay finishes
for Pioneer. Segal teamed with juniors Jack
Wilkening, Robert Yan and Alex Farmer to
place second in the day’s first race, the 200-
yard medley relay which was won by Saline
and with Yang, Hume and senior Cameron
Williston to finish second to Saline in the 400-
yard freestyle relay at the end of the meet.
Saline had senior Ethan Saunders, senior
Cooper Osgood, junior Blake Coy and junior
Matt Adanin win the 400-yard freestyle relayin 3:03.84 and the team of Adanin, junior
Joshua Brunty, Osgood and Saunders win the
200-yard medley relay in 1:30.35. Saunders
took the 100-yard freestyle state title himself
in 44.64 seconds.
West Ottawa won two state championships
as well with junior Kevin Mass taking the
50-yard freestyle in 20.60 and then teaming
with seniors Josh Rottier, Tai Afrik and Alex
Boersema to win the 200-yard freestyle relay
in 1:23.25. Saline’s team of Coy, Osgood,
Brunty and Saunders was less than half a sec-
ond behind in the runner-up spot in that relay.sports
Lakewood senior Brady Gawne drives around Lansing Sexton’s Dai’John Chandler
during the first half of the Division 2 District Semifinal at Ionia High School Thursday
evening. (Photo by Brett Bremer)Lakewood junior guard Denny Sauers looks to get a pass off as he attacks along the
baseline during the first half of his team’s loss to Lansing Sexton in the Division 2
District Semifinal at Lakewood High School Thursday. (Photo by Brett Bremer)Barry County Barracuda senior diver Gram Price is joined by diving coach Todd
Bates as they celebrate his state medal winning performance at the Division 1 Lower
Peninsula Swimming and Diving Finals in Hudsonville Friday.Potterville overtakes
Lions late for
district final spot
Brett Bremer
Sports Editor
Potterville went on a 17-9 run in the fourth
quarter to steal Thursday night’s Division 3
District Semifinal from the Maple Valley var-
sity boys’ basketball team at Dansville High
School.
The Vikings wiped out a 41-37 Lion lead in
the fourth quarter to score a 54-50 victory and
earn a spot in the district final against the
Greater Lansing Activities Conference cham-
pions from Leslie.
The Lion lead was as large as six points in
the fourth quarter.
“We weren’t able to hang on, but our kids
gave everything they had and played their
hearts out,” Lion head coach Ryan Nevins
said.
“It was a great high school basketball
game,” he added. “Both teams played incred-
ibly hard. We knew going in we had to keep
the game in the 40’s or 50’s to give ourselves
a chance. We have talked all year about play-
ing at our tempo and we have done a really
good job of that for the last seven or eight
games.”
The Lions built a 13-11 lead in the opening
quarter and the Vikings surged for a 29-halftime lead and led by as many as seven
points in that second quarter.
Seniors Curtis Walker and Hugheston
Heckathorn kept the Lions in the ballgame on
the scoreboard, putting in ten points each in
the first half. Heckathorn closed the night
with 19 points and nine rebounds. Walker had
ten points and 12 boards.
Lane Morris scored nine points in the third
quarter for the Lions as they pulled in front.
The senior shooting guard closed his career
with a 17-point and five-steal performance.
Nevins was also pleased with the play of
his senior point guard Buck Schrader.
“Buck Schrader was a great floor general
all night,” Nevins said. “They pressed us all
night and he did a great job of handling the
pressure and getting us into our sets. He only
ended up with two points, but had six assists
and only two turnovers.”
Senior Blaze Sensiba did not score for the
Lions, but ended with eight rebounds and four
steals.
Leslie defeated Dansville 71-46 in the other
Division 3 District Final in Dansville Thursday
and then claimed the district championship
when Potterville was forced to forfeit
Saturday’s district final to the Blackhawks.Blood drive today
in Hastings
As of yesterday afternoon, some
appointments were available in the
American Red Cross blood drive in
Hastings.
The drive today, April 1, is at the Barry
County Commission on Aging, 320 W.
Woodlawn Ave., from 11 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.
The American Red Cross is calling for
donors of all blood types, especially those
with type O blood, to give blood and help
refuel the blood supply. As extra incentive,
Red Cross has teamed up with IndyCar to
urge people to help keep the blood supply
on track by donating blood or platelets.Those who give blood or platelets April
1-15 will automatically be entered to win a
VIP trip for four to the 2022 Indianapolis- The Red Cross also will automatically
enter the names of all who give blood in
April for a chance to win one of five
$1,000 electronic gift cards to a merchant
of choice. Additional details are available
at RedCrossBlood.org/Indy500.
Donation appointments can be
scheduled by downloading the Red Cross
Blood Donor App, visiting RedCrossBlood.
org, or calling 800-RED CROSS (800-733-
2767).