Friday Night Grant Newaygo Basketball, Pure Michigan

Friday Night Grant Newaygo Basketball, Pure Michigan
Story by Mike Gesler
​Photos by Alexis Mercer

Newaygo 87  Grant 67

There is nothing like a great rivalry game especially when both teams playing are coming in with no expectations. For the folks of Newaygo County, is there any better rivalry than a Grant Newaygo basketball game? It seems like a lifetime ago since I last saw Grant. It was their opening game against Ludington, and even though they lost, they put up an impressive seventy-four points. Since then, they have gone 3-3 on the season. This was my first look at Newaygo who was entering Grant’s court with a 4-3 record and were on a three game win streak. The stands were packed. The atmosphere electric. The Grant High School choir sang the National Anthem. The Grant High School pep band kept the music pumping. It was game time, and oh what fun this game was going to be.


The Grant faithful didn’t have much to cheer about at the start of the game. In fact it was one of those “oh no, this is going to be a long night” moments. Newaygo opened up fast and aggressive. They kept Grant on Grant’s defensive half of the court. Before Grant would even cross the center line, the Lions put up six points between Decker, Wells, and Long. Zak Barnhart would stop the bleeding for Grant as Lucas Swanson finally found the Tigers' offensive side of the court and Barnhart with an open look for two. From that point on, the two teams would exchange blows like two heavyweight fighters hoping the last blow would do enough damage to open something up.

These two teams definitely gave their fans plenty to cheer over, and the final score really doesn’t reflect on the closeness of this game. For three quarters of play, the Tigers managed to keep this game within six points or less. If the Tigers hit a three, the Lions matched with their own three. The Tigers would go on short run pulling the game with one or two, and then the Lions would find a way to just slightly stretch their lead out again.


It would be three Newaygo runs that started at the end of the third quarter and continued into the fourth that would ultimately hand the Lions the victory. The first was an eight point run, followed by a six point run, and then the kiss of death nine point run in the last half of the fourth. The Tigers simply could not match it. By then Newaygo’s size and physicality had worn down the Tigers. Watching Grant’s Blake Rider try to take on Newaygo’s Bryce Decker was probably the fourth quarter visual equivalent on a micro scale.


Because of the blending of the CSAA Conference, it really is a shame that these two teams will probably not see each other again this year unless the District stars line up. As Newaygo’s Coach Long and I discussed, if Grant had the opportunity to play in Newaygo like previous years, the table could easily turn. In Coach Long’s words, “Really a fun game.”

“The score doesn’t really look like what the game I thought was like,” stated Coach Long. “I thought both teams were getting up and down the floor. Both teams shot the ball well. We had some big defensive stops in the fourth quarter that really helped us. We talked about the defensive end is where we were going have to go; we’ll need to get some stops. We have a thing that we talk about is stop-score-stop, and that’s our motto. We want to get a stop, a score, and then get another stop and try to build on it. It sounds real basic but we’re just trying to slowly bucket by bucket try to grow. I thought all twelve guys played well together. It’s a tough place to win. It’s a good Grant team. They’re going to be good this year.”


“We talked all game. We thought we were giving good effort. We thought we were working hard and competing,” shared Grant’s coach, Joe Schuitema. “It felt like we were battling from behind the whole game. We caught up like multiple times throughout the game, and then we clearly didn’t have anything for the fourth quarter to match what they did which I felt like they played phenomenal in the fourth quarter in particular. Moved the ball well, took great shots, and made a bunch of them. I give them credit for that part, and wish that we would have been able to make a few more at that critical time and kept the game going. Unfortunately, we didn’t.”


Oakley Obenauf had the hot hand for the Tigers tonight with twenty-two. Lucas Swanson and Gage Cronk also had double digits with twelve and ten respectively. Zak Barnhart and Chase Geers had five apiece. Zaiden Phillips put up four. Austin Whitney and Drew Crater each added three. And Mason Woodard contributed two. The Tigers will next welcome Whitehall onto their court on Tuesday evening. Game time is 7:00.


For Newaygo, Josiah Long lead with twenty-seven. Three other Lions saw double digits. Bryce Decker with twenty-one, Caris Nelson with seventeen, and Dyllan Bazzett with ten. Grant Harkness put in five. Logan Klomp added three. Remy Wells and Blake Kerr each shot two. The Lions will hope to continue their win streak as they travel to Shelby on Monday night to take on the Pirates. Game time is 7:00.