West Michigan Roundup, Tuesday 3/23/21

West Michigan Roundup, Tuesday 3/23/21

The first night of the playoffs did not disappoint with upsets, buzzer beaters, and overtime games. The story of the night was FH Central defeating Rockford 52-51 despite trailing 43-36 in the third quarter. The Rangers path does not get any easier with Northview looming in the semi-finals and possibly FH Northern in the title. Some other great games that took place across D1 included Wyoming sneaking past Byron Center 54-53, Reeths-Puffer pulling out a close win over Kenowa Hills 49-47, and Ottawa Hills defeating Middleville-TK 60-55. The other big game of the night between Caledonia and East Kentwood lived up to the potential with Caledonia winning 53-49 led by 27 points from Koby Vanderwoude. In D2 Holland Christian and Hamilton had a battle, but the Maroons took the game 61-50 and will take on Coloma on Thursday. Lastly, the finish of the night was Calvin Christian defeating Potter’s House at the buzzer 38-37. Down in Kalamazoo there was some crazy upsets including winless Gobles topping Bloomingdale 66-63 in overtime and one-win BC Central defeating Lakeview 44-39. Not sure why Lakeview decided to play BCC twice in the past week and a half prior to districts. Marcellus picked up a big victory over Bridgman 53-47 to stay in the D3 hunt. Overall, a great night of basketball despite by district predictions going 26-11 which is a little worse than I would have liked.

Best Win: FH Central over Rockford 52-51

In the biggest game of the night, the Rangers came to play defeating a Rockford team that was (15-2) with their only losses to Grand Haven. FH Central has been extremely underrated this season and proved that last night. Conner Milton led the team with 17 points & 11 rebounds while Jonah Spates had 14 points. Chris Battiste scored the game-winner with :15 left.

Best Comeback: Zeeland West over Grandville

The Dux trailed 22-3 after the first quarter, but battled back cutting the deficit to 32-25 at halftime. Carson Gulker led the Dux with 18 points and will now look to lead them past the undefeated Chix of Zeeland East on Thursday.

Biggest Upsets:

• (1-9) BC Central defeated (9-5) BC Lakeview after falling to them twice in the past two weeks
• (0-13) Gobles picked up their first victory of the season against (4-8) Bloomingdale. Gobles had only lost by less than 10 points one time this season (9 pts against Saugatuck)

Top Performances:

-Parchment’s Tony Williams (2022 G): 32 points

-Spring Lake’s Jackson Core (2022): 28 points, 8 rebounds

-Caledonia’s Koby Vanderwoude (2021 PG): 27 points

-Gobles’ Nick Lopez (2024): 25 points

-Marcellus’ Gavin Etter (2021 G): 22 points

-Reeths-Puffer’s Kendall Smith (2021 PF): 20 points, 8 rebounds

-Portage Central’s Caleb Johnson (2022): 21 points, 4 rebounds

-Holland Christian’s Adam Kroeze (2022 G): 22 points

-Holland Christian’s Jalen Overway (2022 C): 20 points

-Rockford’s Sam Krist (2021 G/F): 20 points

Game I Attended: Caledonia 53, East Kentwood 49

An intriguing district quarterfinal took place at Caledonia, where the (8-6) Scots took on the (3-11) Falcons. Caledonia jumped out to an early lead led by Nick Henry being in a force in the paint and Koby Vanderwoude knocking down outside shots. Caledonia held a 17-9 lead after the first quarter. EK’s sophomore wing Jy’Air Harris hit back-to-back threes to cut the deficit to 21-15 early in the second quarter. Caledonia’s Koby Vanderwoude answered with a three of his own making it 24-15. Caledonia took a 27-22 lead into the locker room for halftime. EK was called for a technical foul for dunking in warmups prior to the second half, but Caledonia only hit one of the free throws. The third quarter was dominated by East Kentwood bringing the energy and Chris Brown hitting everything. Brown went 4-4 from the field for 11 points including an and-1 three pointer to give EK their first lead of the game 32-28 with 3:39 left in the quarter. Caledonia finally hit their first field goal of the half with 3:04 remaining when Liam Mulnix scored to make it 34-31 EK. The Falcons proceeded to go on a 5-0 run to make the game 39-31 with 1:33 left in the quarter. Caledonia did cut the deficit in half going into the final quarter trailing 39-35. The start of the fourth quarter was back and forth with Caledonia regaining the lead 42-41 with 5:53 left. East Kentwood led 47-44 with 3:43 left before Caledonia scored to make it 47-46 and then Andrew Larson blew a wide-open layup to take the lead for Caledonia. The East Kentwood bench received a technical foul with 2:56 remaining and Caledonia took advantage of that, splitting a pair at the line to tie the game at 47. Next, Caledonia took the lead 49-47 on a Nick Henry bucket. East Kentwood’s Marshaun Flakes answered with 1:17 left, tying the game at 49. Caledonia once again regained the lead on a Koby Vanderwoude basket 51-49 with 1:05 left. On the next trip down EK’s Marshaun Flakes was fouled and sent to the line for a 1-and-1 which he proceeded to miss. Now Caledonia had a chance to ice the game with Koby Vanderwoude at the line but he missed both free throws giving EK another chance. East Kentwood never even got a shot on their next possession turning the ball over after several passes. Caledonia’s Liam Mulnix went to the line and made both free throws to extend the lead to 53-49 where it would end. Caledonia was led by Koby Vanderwoude with 27 points including 4-7 from three point range. Nick Henry played fantastic down low scoring 9 points. East Kentwood had great games from Chris Brown with 13 points and Marshaun Flakes with 17 points. Jy’Air Harris got hot at one point, but was unable to sustain anything, only scoring 9 points. Caledonia will have to play better if they would like to win the district title, but they are capable as tonight showed they still won without productive games from Paul Vogeler and Andrew Larson.