Bobcats advance to final, taking quick lead with 3-point shooting attack
EAST LANSING – The Niles Brandywine girls basketball team followed the lead of the boys team, which won the Division 3 state title last week, to get to the dance as well, beating Lake City, 52-39, in Thursday’s semifinals at the Breslin Center.
Brandywine used the power of the 3-point shot to grab an early lead and never really let off the gas — except to run clock at the end of both the second and third quarters. The Bobcats scored first and never trailed, and went up 13-4 in the first quarter. They then made nothing but 3s from the field plus two free throws in the second quarter to take a 27-13 halftime lead. Brandywine made six 3s in the first half.
Brandywine (26-1) made only six shots inside the arc, but made 10 3s for the game. At one point, from within two minutes remaining in the first quarter, to 3:22 remaining in the third quarter, the Bobcats made only 3s, seven of them, and three free throws.
“The key today was their height and our ability to spread the court and shot the 3, so we knew it was going to take an army to defend (Alison Bisballe and MacKenzie Bisballe), they are really really good college players,” said Brandywine coach Josh Hood. “And I thought our kids did a phenomenal job, in one day, we put in a triangle and two defense and they executed it to perfection. That’s what you get when you have a team GPA of 3.8, a bunch of unbelievable student athletes.”
Hood agreed that the boys’ example was a factor.
“I absolutely think that was motivation,” he said. “It started three weeks ago, sitting at Ford Field and watch two Brandywine wrestlers win the state championship. I thought, ‘wow, this is awesome.’ The very next week, our boys are into districts and regionals and then we watched them on Saturday win a state championship.”
Lake City (25-3) made a 7-0 run early in the fourth quarter to close the gap to 39-28, on a 3 by Makayla Hall, a jump shot by 6-4 center Alison Bisballe and a drive down the lane by MacKenzie Bisballe, but Brandywine pulled away again.
Miley Young led Brandywine with 20 points while Kadence Brumitt added 14 points and 10 rebounds.
MacKenzie Bisballe led Lake City with 17 points and Alison Bisballe had 12.
“I tell people al the time that Brandywine is a hidden gem in Michigan. Well, it’s not hidden anymore. It’s just a gem,” said Hood.
“Brandywine is not where 6-foot girls grow, for some reason. So we have for 15 years, we’ve been one of the top 3-point shooting teams. We have to when you’ve got a bunch of short girls. But this was not an abnormality tonight. We shot 27,000 3-point shots this fall. All the girls are fall sport athletes. They’d come at 6 o’clock in the morning, and we charted 27,000 3-point shots. This is who we are, we like to play fast. Out of 27 games now, that’s the first time we didn’t play man-to-man, run and jump.”
Evan Winkler, principal at Niles Brandywine, was beaming with pleasure pregame, and postgame.
“I can tell you there’s been a lot of pride and a lot of excitement in our community,” he said. “We’ve been traveling everywhere the last few weeks; nobody’s been at home. Everyone has been out cheering on the Bobcats, either boys or girls.
“What we say in our town is our school is our community and our community is our school. There’s just been so much excitement at school, with a lot of assemblies, and we’ve had a lot of police escorts back into town. When we got back Saturday night (after the boy’s team won the state title), someone in our community had set up fireworks for when the team came home. It’s just been one of those things you never know if you’re going to get again. It’s been a really cool experience.”