Resurgent Warriors use third quarter surge to prevail

Mar. 3—MUSKEGON — Western Michigan Christian's halftime locker room conversation against Muskegon Heights Academy was a challenging one.

The Warriors went into the half down 24-20 to a Tiger team that hadn't played a game yet this season. They responded to the occasion, exploded with a 21-point third quarter and eventually beat Muskegon Heights Academy, 59-50.

Senior Michael TenCate hit a 3-pointer to go along with his seven first-quarter points, and the Warriors had the lead 13-9 after one. That didn't last long, though, as the Tigers erupted from deep in midst of a 13-0 run that put them up 22-13 midway through the second.

After a timeout from WMC, junior Owen Varnado and senior Isaac Parker scored on back-to-back possessions, and the Warriors flashed their full court press in part of a 7-2 run of their own to trail 24-20 at the half.

Warrior coach Kurt Gruppen recognized that his team was not ready to play in the first half of Tuesday night's game.

"That showed in our warmup and in our first two quarters," Gruppen said. "They beat us to every loose ball and every 50-50 ball. That's what we had to talk about at halftime."

Every single one of Gruppen's players was challenged and he couldn't have been more proud of the way they responded in the second half.

One of those players was Parker, who scored 12 of his 14 total points in the second half.

"He just told us to come out hard and play the way we play," Parker said. "Other than that we just had to get our head screwed on straight."

Micah TerHaar kickstarted the Warriors third quarter with back-to-back threes in part of a 9-0 spurt.

Varnado noted TerHaar's hot shooting, along with contributions from others that catapulted them to a lead in the third.

"The coaches said we're much more capable than what we played," Varnado said. "Micah stepped it up a lot and Michael TenCate played really good as well. Isaac Parker also played great defense and I think that gave us a good lift to the second half and allowed us to play the game we do."

Varnado, who prefers to do the majority of ball-handling duties, knew the Warriors had an advantage on the boards.

"We knew if they were going to shoot it and it wasn't going to go in, it would be a long rebound," he said. "That's one thing we focus a lot on in practices is boxing out. If it's offensive, we have to be able to go back up strong so I think since we stressed it in practice that helped us get it done in the game."

Gruppen noted he's asked Varnado to do a little bit of everything in the offense.

"He's a big kid and plays well around the basket," Gruppen said. "We also need him to handle the ball a lot on the perimeter. He was able to make some big plays and really kind of control the pace a little bit for us."

Muskegon Heights Academy got as close as three with just over a minute left in the third, but a nifty spin and score by Varnado and a Brekken Fairfield layup had the Warriors up 41-34 going into the fourth.

The Tigers hung around in the fourth with scolding 3-point shooting by Muskegon Heights Academy sophomore Dequan Mathews, who had a game-high 20 points. Mathews connected on a total of six 3s. As this was the Tigers' first game, Gruppen explained the WMC defense was blind as to what Heights' plan of attack would be.

"They had some threes but when you don't have any tape to watch ahead of time, we have no idea," he said. "So we found out pretty quickly."

Ultimately, Gruppen was proud of the way his team responded when their backs were against the wall.

"Everything from the top guy all the way down through the bench responded really well," he said.

Varnado led the Warriors with 19 points and eight rebounds, TenCate added 10 points and eight rebounds and TerHaar chipped in eight points.

WMC played Holton on Wednesday night after press time; they'll host Whitehall on Friday night.