Federal court returns ex-Dakota player to hardwood for OLSM
Hines drops 23 in return to hardwood
ORCHARD LAKE >> Following a layered and tumultuous legal process, Orchard Lake St. Mary’s boys basketball transfers, Jayden Savoury (Detroit Renaissance) and Isaiah “Zip” Hines (Macomb Dakota) are eligible for this week’s start of the state tournament.
Last week, the U.S. District Court in downtown Detroit granted the Savoury and Hines’ families an injunction so the sophomores could finish out the season after only previously suiting up for three games in December due to eligibility issues, first from the Catholic League and then the MHSAA, both related to their status as boarding students.
Savoury, a 6-foot-5 forward and Hines, a 5-11 guard, were in uniform last Thursday night in St. Mary’s regular season finale, a lopsided victory over Detroit Public Safety where Hines dazzled with a 23-point effort in his return to the court and Savoury, the more highly touted tenth grader, added 12 points in just 10 minutes of action. Junior Angel Kechovski, who transferred into the school during the offseason from Europe and was also a part of the lawsuit, is back in uniform as well. The Eaglets open districts on Wednesday night against West Bloomfield, which beat district host Bloomfield Hills 62-56 in Monday’s opening round game.
Kechovski, Savoury and Hines all moved into St. Mary’s dormitories last summer. At that time, the Eaglets, featuring the No. 1 sophomore in the state in Trey McKenney, were the defending Catholic League Central champions. The CHSL Central has been one of the best prep leagues in America the past two seasons. By August, the CHSL had ruled the players ineligible for the 2023 campaign, while the MHSAA cleared them. The players families fought the CHSL’s decision in the court system, citing the state of Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, claiming the CHSL’s boarding-school eligibility protocol was discriminatory due to eligibility bans only applying to the minority
heavy cities of Detroit and Lansing.
On December 14, the CHSL relented and ruled the players eligible. Fast forward two weeks later and the MHSAA reversed course and ruled the players immediately ineligible because St. Mary’s failed to meet the exemption requirement
for boarding schools since according to the MHSAA, St. Mary’s didn’t have 10 percent of its student body living on campus. St. Mary’s presented evidence to the MHSAA that it did meet the requirement but the MHSAA didn’t deem it valid and rejected the school’s appeal. So on Feb. 11, the players families once again filed a lawsuit challenging the ruling. Last week’s ruling
to grant the injunction, “stays” the proceedings until after the state tournament, barring an appeal by the MHSAA to a higher court contesting the validity of the injunction.
St. Mary’s is 10-10 entering tournament play. The Eaglets have advanced to the Division 1 quarterfinals each of the last two seasons, falling to eventual state champs Grand Blanc and Warren De La Salle, respectively.