Clarkston Earns 1st Shot at Dream Finish
March 24, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – Dan Fife dreamed of playing for an MHSAA basketball championship at Jenison Field House while a student at Clarkston 50 years ago.
Thursday afternoon, the current Wolves made similar dreams come true – and offered their coach that opportunity he never was able to achieve as a player.
Clarkston’s 78-35 win over league rival West Bloomfield in Friday’s first Class A Semifinal earned the program its first appearance in an MHSAA boys basketball championship game.
The Wolves have had piles of success under Fife, the fourth winningest coach in state hoops history with 676 wins since taking over the program before the 1982-83 season. He’s led Clarkston to 30 District and 12 Regional titles, with Friday’s Semifinal the second during his tenure.
“Coach Fife, I don’t think he’ll admit how much it means to him. But it’s everyone’s goal at the beginning of every season; your ultimate goal is to finish out with a win,” Clarkston junior guard Foster Loyer said. “For Coach Fife, and the community of Clarkston, that would just mean the world to all of us, just motivate us to keep working even more.”
Clarkston (26-1), which entered the postseason tied for No. 3 in The Associated Press’ final regular-season Class A poll, will finish this season against Grand Rapids Christian at noon Saturday at the Breslin Center.
The Semifinal was the third ever in Wolves history. And the rare opportunity to advance to Saturday came with an even rarer opportunity to face a familiar opponent in this late round of the tournament.
Clarkston had beaten West Bloomfield (17-9) by 11 and seven during the regular season on the way to winning the Oakland Activities Association Red championship; the Lakers tied for third in the league.
And they knew what to expect from Loyer, a junior already committed to play at Michigan State. But it didn’t help much this time.
Loyer’s first shot of the game, an attempted layup, sailed over the rim. His second shot, a 3-pointer, touched nothing but net.
Making 10 of 17 shots from the floor and 5 of 8 3-pointers, Loyer finished with 32 points, to go with seven assists. Senior forward Dylan Alderson added 27 points, and sophomore center Taylor Currie had 10 points and 16 rebounds as Clarkston hit 57 percent of its shots from the floor – including an incredible 69 percent during a first quarter that ended with the Wolves carrying a 24-13 lead.
Clarkston took an 18-point advantage into halftime.
Senior guard Kevin McAdoo led the Lakers with 22 points, but as a team they made only 22 percent of their shots from the floor, and had just one steal as Clarkston had only four turnovers but 17 assists.
“It’s a tough one to swallow today, especially with the ride we were on to get here,” said seventh-year West Bloomfield coach Jeremy Denha. “What a fun, fun time to get here with the ups and downs and the way the kids battled. We hadn’t sniffed a District Final, let alone a District title, since I’d been here – we hadn’t won one since 2003. For us to make this magical run, get to Breslin, play Clarkston a third time … yeah, the outcome is disappointing, but it’s about the journey too.”
Fife has been on a lot of these trips. So he'd likely quickly agree with his OAA colleague. And especially with how this journey has a chance to end for the first time.
“I’m not worried about what it means to me. I have an expectation; I’ve always had one no matter what I’m doing. If I’m playing something, I’m going to compete,” Fife said. “The reality is, I dreamed of playing in the state championship when I was in high school. I wanted to get to Jenison. That was always my dream, and I’m just trying to instill in the kids to have the same dream – to play basketball and get to this point. They’ll remember this day the rest of their lives, and tomorrow’s game, regardless of what happens.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Clarkston’s Foster Loyer breaks past West Bloomfield defenders to get a shot up during Friday’s first Class A Semifinal. (Middle) The Wolves’ Tieler Houston (15) gets position on West Bloomfield’s Daniel Wrack.
Future Has Arrived as Port Huron United Continues Impressive Climb
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
May 8, 2024
Brad McDougal knew when he returned to the Port Huron United lacrosse program in 2019 that in order to grow it to what he thought it could be, he’d have to build for the future.
His plan was simple and time-tested: Start a youth program that would get players within the school system playing together more frequently and against better competition, preparing them to one day be varsity players.
It didn’t take long to see that it could work, and perhaps better and faster than he had hoped.
“We’ve known for a while (this was the year),” McDougal said. “Basically, when I started with that youth team, my ambition was if I can get four or five kids that have been coached, then build around them for the varsity program, that would be great. It turned out to be 15 of them.”
Behind 15 seniors, the majority of whom were part of McDougal’s original youth team, Port Huron United is competing at a level it never has before. United is ranked No. 9 in the Division 1 MPR following a 10-3 start, and won the Macomb Area Conference Red title for the first time in program history.
It’s a history that McDougal is plenty familiar with, having been a high school junior when the program began in 2006. McDougals have been part of the program ever since, whether it was him as a coach fresh out of high school and now, his brother Ben as a player, or his father Brian as a coach at various levels throughout all of it.
“Being around it as long as I have, that has sunk in,” he said. “The amount of teams that are reaching out to us now that never would have before – teams reaching out for film, ‘How were you able to defend this?’ Teams reaching out for scheduling that I think would have just ignored the email a couple years back. It’s definitely not lost on me.”
It’s also not lost on the players, who have heard McDougal talk about the program’s beginnings and have also seen first-hand a quick ascent.
As freshmen, this current group of seniors were a major part of a varsity team that played in the MAC Blue – the MAC’s divisions are based on performance, with Red being the highest – dominating it and earning promotion to the MAC White the following season. Another unbeaten league season put United into the MAC Red in 2023, and while there were some growing pains in going 2-3 against higher-level competition, there were signs of better things to come.
“The second my class joined, we just dominated our leagues,” senior goalie Danny Moore said. “We went from Blue to White to Red in three years. Last year in the Red, we went 2-3, but it wasn’t without close games. I think (the rise) definitely stunned us a little bit. Not a week goes by that I don’t think about the giant leap we took. It’s like a world record long jump.”
Moore said the team started this season “like a cannonball out of the cannon with too much gun powder” as this group of seniors knew it was their last opportunity to play with one another.
United was dominant in its MAC Red season, going 5-0 and out-scoring opponents 61-12, not allowing more than three goals in any single game.
On the season, it has outscored opponents 136-50, led by senior goal-scoring threats Silas Klink, Jacob O’Hare, Nate DeLand, Matt Graham and Tim Monaghan. Moore is stopping more than 80 percent of the shots he’s faced, behind the defense of seniors Jack Bennett and Max Williams, and junior Parker Quinn, among others.
That’s despite a beefed-up nonconference schedule, which McDougal put together to better prepare his team for the upcoming postseason.
“We have a way harder schedule this year,” Klink said. “We haven’t ever made it to the Regional Final in all the program’s history, so that’s a big goal. I think scheduling all these teams, Coach McDougal knew what he was doing to get us battle-tested.”
Boys Lacrosse Regionals open May 16, and Lake Orion – which defeated Port Huron 11-4 in the season opener – is the host of United’s bracket.
Winning a Regional is the next goal for Port Huron, and McDougal repeatedly tells his team he wants a Michigan trophy. They’re ready to do all they can to make that happen, but also aren’t shying away from the possibility of blowing away his expectations once again.
“State champs,” said Bennett, who has committed to play lacrosse at Albion College along with Moore. “We want to go all the way. It would just be like – I don’t even know how to describe it. For the program, it would further push lacrosse at my high school and Port Huron. Twenty years ago, we didn’t even have a lacrosse team, so I think it would really push lacrosse in Port Huron.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Port Huron United’s Silas Klink (1) makes a run at the goal against Macomb Dakota. (Middle) Matt Graham (12) maintains possession against the Cougars. (Photos by Margaret Quinn.)