‘SNOWBALL EFFECT’
South Lyon snaps Hazel Park’s 10-game win streak
To say it’s been a long time since these two programs had this kind of success on the court would be sort of like saying the Sahara Desert is a tad dry.
Hazel Park headed across the county to South Lyon for its yearly non-conference ‘friendly’ with the Lions on Wednesday, with the Vikings able to legitimately tout that they were among the hottest teams in the county.
And the Lions team they met could reasonably say the same thing.
It’s something NEITHER program has been able to claim in the longest time.
South Lyon’s 42-24 win snapped a 10game win streak for the Vikings, as the Lions extended their own streak to eight in a row.
“It’s kind of been a while for Hazel Park basketball. So it’s, it’s a great thing. It’s a new thing, but we’re embracing it and we’re enjoying it,” said Vikings coach Dakota Ogles, who was Lions coach Chris Schroudt’s junior varsity assistant when Schroudt coached at Hazel Park, and had Schroudt stand up in his wedding. “You get that first win, and the girls are kind of looking around each other like, ‘Oh, that was kind of nice.’ And then you start working a little bit harder. And the second game came, and third game came, and that snowball effect sort of sets in, and then you start rolling.”
Before Wednesday, Hazel Park (12-5) hadn’t lost since Dec. 12, rolling to the title in the Macomb Area Conference’s Bronze Division with a 10-0 record. It was the program’s first league title since 2008, back when the Vikings were still in the Oakland
Activities Association.
The Lions (13-4) have been on a similar tear, their last loss coming on Jan. 13, against rival South Lyon East.
That hot spell — which was capped with a 55-44 win over Walled Lake Northern on Tuesday — left the Lions tied with Northern for second in the Lakes Valley Conference, both at 10-3.
“I can definitely say, I didn’t — I had no expectations. As you know, it is hard to win in the LVC. Hands down, it is tough to win. So for us to be in this position, no, I did not expect it. And we certainly had some things go our way and credit to the girls for just putting in the time and just working their butts off, really,” Schroudt said. “It’s very exciting, it’s really exciting. At this time of the year, we have not been able to put ourselves in a position where these end-of-season games truly meant something. Whether it be our district games, whether it be playing for an LVC championship, just to be able to go in the locker room before a game and every game having that meaning and that sort of intensity has been just fun.”
Wednesday’s game itself did not have as much meaning, especially since the Lions jumped out to a big lead, and cruised the rest of the way, leading 18-5 after one quarter, 27-9 at the half, and 36-15 going to the fourth.
Freshman Sarah Nelson had 13 points to lead the Lions, while Madilyn Gleason and Izzy Nooe had eight each. Essence Fields had 11 points to lead the Vikings, while
Courtney Ford added six.
But the meaning in the game was the fact that both of these programs were quantum leaps ahead of where they’d been in years past.
The Vikings had a 13-win season as recently as 2019-20 — their first in the MAC — but hadn’t ever finished above third in the MAC Bronze until this year’s title. They’re also just two seasons removed from a twowin campaign, something they’ve done done as often over the last seven years as they have winning a dozen games.
The Lions have struggled just as mightily, just three years removed from a 1-20 season in 2019-20. In the five years since the founding of the LVC, they’ve never finished higher than the sixth-place showing of the last two seasons. That’s after the final six seasons in the KLAA Central, when they finished higher than sixth just twice, and never higher than fourth.
The last time South Lyon won 12 games was in 2009-10, the second year of the KLAA, and two years after rival South Lyon East opened its doors.
The last time the Lions won a district title was, again, in 2008 — when both coaches were still in high school, themselves.
The last time South Lyon won a league title?
It was 1992, back in the old Kensington Valley Conference.
(You don’t want to know where the coaches were back then.)
“Yeah, for him and for us, you know, we both took over programs that were struggling. Credit to our girls over here, they’ve really bought into sort of toughness and commitment, and the culture around just showing up and working hard has contin
ued to grow. … It’s exciting for the kids, exciting for the parents. We’ve just had so much support. So it’s been a it’s been an awesome season,” Schroudt said. “The hardest thing to do as a coach is to change culture. And I think we’ve started to do some of those things. I don’t think it’s necessarily translated, top-to-bottom. And what I mean by that is we started to win games, we have players who are are phenomenal — Izzy Nooe is
just fun to watch. And so we just hope that that continues to build into more excitement and and get more people to come out to the games, right? It’s just kind of continuing to build that culture of commitment to success and hopefully winning is in the conversation.”
The Lions have put themselves in the league race. At two games behind East, they’ll need to win Friday’s rematch, and get some help to catch the Cougars, who have to face Northern — the only league team to beat them so far — yet again.
The Vikings, on the other
hand, are done with their regular-season league race, and move on to the MAC Silver/Bronze tournament, where they’re slated to face Clintondale on Thursday. All of a sudden, the expectations are different than they might have been at the start of the season.
“The expectation is changed a little bit. It went from ‘working hard, getting better and feeling good about it’ to ‘Let’s let’s try to win this thing. So the energy of practices is is showing it,” Ogles said. “We’ve got high hopes.”
For the first time in a loooooong time.