Union hands Christian first loss of the year in WMAs Game of the Night.

The Red Hawks of Grand Rapids Union have been right at the top of our weekly rankings all year with their highly athletic team led by seniors Ladon Carnegie and Xavier Watson. Tonight they proved why despite 3 losses on the year they are right at the top. Coach Terrence Williams’ boys dealt Grand Rapids Christian their first loss of the season with a 52-45 home victory. The Eagles had been at the top of the heap in the West for pretty much the whole year and had risen to the 3^rd ranked team in the state for class B.

GRC came out flat after not playing a largely meaningful game in about two weeks. The inability to stop penetrating Red Hawk ball handlers proved to be costly early. Union jumped out to an 18-10 first quarter lead behind soph. DeMarcus Stuckey. Watson controlled the point with quick passes and nifty feeds to cutting teammates. Carnegie was rather quiet in the first half.

#42 DeMarkus Stuckey drives on #4 Drake Harris.

The Hawks owned the paint in the first half outscoring Christian 18-6 over the first 16 minutes. Stuckey had 10 at the break while Byron Jones and Jawanza Springer each had 6. Jaylin Staten was able to keep it respectable early as he drilled a pair of triples and Matt Grasmeyer found two loose balls and converted them into 4 points at the half. Freshman Drake Harris was 0-5 in the first half and never seemed to get it going tonight. Union took a 26-19 lead to the locker room at halftime.

The finishing blow for the Eagles came in the third quarter as Carnegie was able to get inside and score the first 8 points of the quarter for the Red Hawks and 10 overall for the stanza. The lead swelled out to 15 points at 36-21 midway through the 3^rd as Christian began to make their run. Following a short run of luck for GRC Justin Crow was able to connect on a rainbow three and then pick up a great pass off a steal by Kavon Frazier for a lay-in and the foul. The lead was cut to 6 and Christian had life.

Perhaps the signature play of the game came as Harris drove into the lane and was swatted by Carnegie. The block led to a leak out pass to Dabien Lawson who layed the ball in for an 8 point lead and the end of the Eagle run. 18 total turnovers combined with 5-11 free-throw shooting crippled GRC down the stretch as they just couldn’t get the flow going on the offensive end all night. Carnegie finished with 14, while Stuckey and Jones put in 12 each. It will be interesting to see how the Eagles bounce back from their first loss of the season.