By Travis Smola
The Vicksburg girls’ basketball team came up a game short of its goal of a semi-final berth at the Breslin Center in Lansing. However, it’s safe to say it gave one of the best teams in the state a real scare during its final appearance of the season.
Vicksburg faced off with a 25-1 Grand Rapids West Catholic squad in the quarterfinal round. It ended up being a defensive dogfight for much of the evening, with West Catholic only pulling away in the game’s final moments for a 35-27 final. Vicksburg Head Coach Tim Kirby credited their opponents for being one of the best teams in the state. The Falcons had a clear size advantage over the Bulldogs in the contest.
“It’s one of those things where they’re an incredibly good team,” Kirby said. “They’re big, they’re much bigger than we are. Their length gave us a little trouble trying to score at the rim.
Vicksburg had a distinct crowd advantage in the game, and both teams seemed a little rattled to start things out. Neither team scored in the first four minutes. When the Falcons finally did get the ball rolling, they went on a 12-0 run. Only a late three-pointer by Makayla Allen saved a first-quarter shutout. She went on to lead the team in scoring with 11 points.
Hannah Devries and Maddi Diekman both had five points in the contest, while Emma Steele had four. Scarlett Hosner had two to round out the scoring. It would have been easy for many teams to get discouraged by such a large deficit at the start of the second. However, Kirby wasn’t surprised when his team charged back to tie the score 14-14 at the half.
“That’s what we’ve done all season long, or the last several seasons,” Kirby said. “It’s what we hang our hat on. You know we’re going to keep on fighting, keep on playing.”
Vicksburg took the lead briefly with about three minutes left in the third quarter. However, it was short-lived. West Catholic carried a 27-21 lead into the final quarter. The Bulldogs managed to cut that lead down to 30-27 with about a minute left. Unfortunately, they couldn’t sink any more shots to get closer. The Falcons then converted free throws made during Vicksburg’s intentional foul attempts to pull away for good.
“Only one team can win at the end of the season, and unfortunately, it’s not going to be us this year,” Kirby said. “But I told my girls they’re (West Catholic) one of the very best teams in the state of Michigan, and they have nothing to hang their heads about.”
The game was held in Battle Creek, but thanks to the Bulldog faithfuls’ incredible and noisy turnout, it was hard to distinguish it from a regular home game. Kirby thanked the community for its support and mentioned the turnout in his post-game speech to the team. He said the team fed off their energy constantly through a postseason run that included victories over Stevensville Lakeshore and Grand Rapids South Christian.
“My girls should be proud of that, that they did that for our community and brought that together,” he said.
This year’s team is the best in the school’s history. No other squad has ventured this deep into tournament play before. The team will lose five seniors this year: Diekman, Steele, Sidney Jones, Brooklyn Ringler, and Alexis Bennett.
“There’s tears tonight, and that’s okay,” Kirby said. I don’t want them to be sad because they lost a basketball game. They can be sad because we’ll never be that group of 11 in the locker room again. It’s a special group of girls that I’ve had the opportunity to coach for the last couple of years.”
