Champion win sets up Maplewood rematch

By John Bassetti

HOWLAND — Dan Bubon looks forward to Thursday’s Division III sectional championship game against once-beaten Maplewood, but the Champion coach is also a bit wary.

“They’re going to be ready to go,” Bubon said of the 19-1 Rockets.

“We knocked them out of the tournament last year and gave them their only loss this season [a two-point Champion win in overtime in January]. They are going to be raring to beat us and we only have a one-day turnaround. But we’ll come ready to play.”

Champion had one big Day on Tuesday when Tyler Day’s game-high 23 points reflected the tale of the game as the Golden Flashes eliminated Grand Valley, 71-60.

Day, a 5-foot-9 senior guard, made five goals and 12-of-19 free throws in a second half dominated at the foul line.

Champion finished 23-of-38 at the stripe, while Grand Valley was 10-of-13.

But consistency was missing and it nearly cost Champion (9-12) the game as the Flashes let the Mustangs (9-12) back in the game after leading by 17 (45-28).

Grand Valley got within one (58-57) on Mitchell Lake’s three-point play with 3:09 remaining, but Ian Barnes’ layup and back-to-back 3-point goals by Mike Smith and Derek Sumner gave the Flashes some breathing room.

“We had that big lead, then went haywire, which is very upsetting because of the number of seniors we have,” Bubon said. “But I like how we finished the game by getting the ball to Ian [Barnes] inside and then the long shots by Smith and Sumner.”

Bubon defended any criticism of the wisdom for trying the 3s at the time.

“I felt good because they were in rhythm and shot with a lot of confidence,” he said of Smith and Sumner. “They had the green light to shoot in that situation. That was big. It went from one [58-57] to nine [66-57] in three possessions.”

He further explained his strategy of not objecting to Smith and Sumner trying 3s.

“Unless we’re making the call to hold the ball to get fouled, we’ve got to take those shots because there was too much time left. You’re not going to hold it for two minutes. Maybe with a minute or so, you can do it. But you’ve still got to play. If we’re going to go down, we’re going to go down being aggressive as opposed to just hoping not to lose. So I was fine with that.”

Bubon said Grand Valley’s press got the Mustangs back in the game.

“Their press bothered us, which, again, is upsetting because we handled pressure really well this year. And then we missed a lot of foul shots. In the third and fourth quarters, it just seemed like the best we could do was split — we never made two, we’d miss two sometimes. And they hit some 3s.”

Sumner had 16 points for the Flashes, who led at the half, 41-28.

A.J. Henson led Grand Valley with 22 points — including four 3-point goals. Anthony Oscar added 18 points for the Mustangs while Cory Weyer had 10.

“We’ve made comebacks like this all year,” Henson said of erasing Champion’s 17-point lead. The 5-9 freshman said that, in one game, Grand Valley was down by 13 entering the fourth quarter, then barely lost in overtime.

“We’ve had rough times like this before, but, even though we fell short, it just shows how much heart we have.”

A fellow freshman, Mitchell Lake, had five points for Grand Valley.

Thursday’s Champion-Maplewood game follows the opener at 6:30 p.m. between LaBrae and Brookfield.

bassetti@vindy.com