Our man Don Kok was on hand at Hope College earlier this week to capture Muskegon Catholic Central as they fought for the right to travel to East Lansing.  Don is proud to share this collection of photos with you, the fans!

After you have completed checking these out, feel free to swing by the gallery Don has on Flickr!

Regional 29 action at Sacred Heart High School in Mount Pleasant should be filled with interesting story lines with the likes of Tri-Unity Christian and the team they beat in last year’s state final, Fulton-Middleton. As well as Muskegon Catholic Central and Pentwater.

Team Overall Record Conf. Record Head-to-head
Tri-Unity Christian 21-2       10-0      2-0
Musk. Cath. Central 14-9        4-6       0-2
Fulton                          19-3         n/a      n/a
Pentwater                   8-14        n/a       n/a

Tri-Unity Christian- The Defenders from Tri-Unity are once again in a familiar situation. The Regionals has been almost as guaranteed as Districts for Tri-Unity the last 14 years. They will face Fulton-Middleton in the first round Monday night. The two teams met in the State Finals last season with Tri-Unity coming out on top. Look for Joey Blauwkamp to lead the Defenders to a strong victory and continue to move on.

Muskegon Catholic Central- MCC won their two district games by a combined 56 points. It’s hard to tell how good they really are playing right now as their competition has not been that great. However, MCC has been known to play tough defense and could surprise if they are taken lightly.

Fulton- Fulton comes in as a real test for Tri-Unity in the first round holding a record of 19-3. The game is set for a 6pm start time on Monday night. Look for Fulton to battle tough with the Defenders as they did last year in the state finals.
Pentwater- Pentwater was the surprise of their District as they pulled off two upsets. Pentwater enters Regionals with an 8-14 record and will be looking to spoil MCC’s run on Monday night and keep the Cinderella story alive.

Prediction
It’s hard not to go with Tri-Unity. The Defenders should take care of business on both Monday and Wednesday to make a return to the Breslin Center for the State-Semis and beyond. However, Regionals should be a little tougher and watch for Fulton to give Tri-Unity a real test on Monday followed by a much better showing from Muskegon Catholic Central than they previously showed earlier this season having two big losses to the Defenders.

The Tri-Unity Christian Defenders had lived up to their name all season long and continued to do so on Friday night at Muskegon Catholic Central’s Ray Cioe Gymnasium. The defenders came into Friday nights contest leading the River Valley conference defensively by only allowing 40.2 points per game. Tonight they bested their season average with a 61-31 win over the Muskegon Catholic Central Crusaders and remained unbeaten improving to 11-0.

The 30 point win makes it five straight wins by at least 20 points for the Defenders. Tri-Unity seems to have hit mid season form and showed it early and often in this one as they began the game scoring the first 14 points holding Catholic Central scoreless for the first 3:57 of the game. At the end of the first the score would read 18-6 in favor of the Defenders with Catholic Central shooting 0-7 from the free throw line in the first quarter. Tri-Unity played aggressively all night resulting in many opportunities for Catholic Central to score from the charity stripe as they shot 33 free throws but only managed to hit on 14 of them. The Tri-Unity defense swarmed all over Catholic Central throughout the entire game.

The defenders found success offensively from the opportunities created by their defensive play. They were led offensively by Joel Boersen with 16 points who was dominant in the post throughout the night, Joey Blauwkamp who added 14 driving to the rim and hitting his mid-range jump shot, and by Doug Venema who was a problem for the Crusaders down low contributing with another 12 points.

Cari Campbell of Catholic Central scored 10 and Jason Ribecky added another 6 for the Crusaders. With this type of defense the Defenders look prime for a great season and a long run in the state tournament. A couple marquee match-ups with Godwin Heights and Zeeland East down the road will tell us more about just how good this defense is and where this team really stands when it comes to the top teams in Western Michigan.

1.) Grand Rapids Christian (5-0)

Christian vaults to the top by taking down Lowell. The Eagles face an upstart Northview team this week but have to be looking forward to EGR in the finale.

2.) Rockford (4-1)

The Rams came up with a huge road win on Friday at Muskegon and Rockford will really need to stub its toe to lose the OK Red.

3.) East Grand Rapids (4-1)

The Pioneers took care of business up at Black Field and now look to Lowell. This is going to be a great game!

4.) Muskegon (4-1)

A great game in the Port City left Muskegon on the short end of another OK Red battle with Rockford. Many tough games remain for the Big Reds, look for them to get back on track quickly.

5.) Lowell (4-1)

A disheartening loss to Christian set the Arrows back but there is no time to dwell on last week as East Grand Rapids welcomes Lowell to town on Friday.

6.) Grand Rapids Catholic Central (4-1)

Caledonia is next for the Cougars who are rolling through the OK Gold. South Christian looks like a game worth circling in a few weeks.

7.) Zeeland West (5-0)

A win this week against Rogers gets the Dux into the playoffs and another one next week against Unity may give them the OK Green as well.

8.) Grand Haven (4-1)

Haven rolled past Hudsonville and should continue that trend until their final two games against Muskegon and West Ottawa.

9.) West Ottawa (4-1)

A Grandville beat down last week has the Panthers very confident after the loss to Rockford. A Ram slip up and the Panthers could earn a share of the Red.

10.) Muskegon Catholic Central (5-0)
The Crusaders are bouncing back from a down year in a big way. Fridays win over West Catholic has put MCC on our map; do they have another state run? Time will tell.

Honorable Mentions (in no order)

Shelby (5-0)

It’s very hard to leave a 5-0 team out of the top ten in the area but the fact is that Shelby just simply hasn’t played anyone too tough; chance to prove many wrong this weekend.

Holland (4-1)

Kitwanna Clark was too much for the Dutch to handle and Holland dropped a league game Friday night. The OK Black has just opened up.

Oakridge (4-1)

A late Ravenna TD doomed Oakridge Friday night and has re-opened the West Michigan Conference. This is going to be a dog fight.

Montague (4-1)

Montague is right back in it thanks to Ravenna. Shelby comes to town Friday and the Cats can make this WMC very intriguing.

Northview (4-1)

Northview has had an amazing season and our hats go off to them. The next three weeks of GR Christian, Lowell and East look unbelievably tough.

West Catholic (3-2)

The Falcons dropped a tough game to Muskegon Catholic but remain alive in the OK Blue. Sparta is on tap this week and can give West Catholic the league lead all alone.

We hope to see you out at a game and will keep you posted on where we will be. Don’t forget that we will update you every Monday on the new WMA rankings. Again feel free to discuss below!

Read the full story with The Muskegon Chronicle: “Muskegon Catholic Central’s big first half…”

Read the full story with The Muskegon Chronicle: “Muskegon Catholic Central tops Fruitport Calvary Christian…”

District #58

Teams: Byron Center Zion Christian, Holland Black River, Hudsonville Freedom Christian, Kentwood Grand River Preparatory, Wyoming Potter’s House Christian, Wyoming Tri-Unity Christian

The Lowdown: Freedom Christian won the Division IV state title last year and no doubt would love to have back-to-back state championships. Tri-Unity gave them a bit of trouble two weeks ago, though, with Freedom not locking up a win until overtime. Potter’s House Christian is also worth keeping an eye on. They spent a week on the honorable mention list for Division IV three weeks ago, and their only losses this season are two Hillsdale Academy, Northern Michigan Christian, and Leland: all state-ranked teams.

Players to Watch: Jesse Snellink, Kody Koster (Freedom Christian); Gabe Mateo (Potter’s House)

Prediction: Freedom has a state title to defend. They’re a powerful team that doesn’t give up.

But don’t count out… Potter’s House. They could definitely be the sleeper of this district.

District #59

Teams: Covenant Christian, NorthPointe Christian, Algoma Christian, Muskegon Catholic Central, Ravenna, Fruitport Calvary Christian

The Lowdown: It’ll be interesting to see what happens in this district. Algoma Christian brings in the best record, and they’ve defeated nearly every team in this district before. NorthPointe’s record isn’t quite as good, but they’ve lost to some strong teams, including Western Michigan Christian, Freedom Christian, and South Christian.

Players to Watch: Jake Dykstra (Algoma Christian), Peter Wiersma (NorthPointe Chrsitian)

Prediction: NorthPointe is more battle-tested than the other teams in this district, plus they’ll have home field advantage if they make it to district finals.

But don’t count out… Algoma Christian. They may not have played as large of schools as NorthPointe, but this is the Division IV tournament, and at this point it doesn’t matter if you can beat large schools or not.

Incomplete data for Miller.

Be sure to check out our top-20 quarterbacks and running backs as well.

Incomplete data for Snead IV, Schroeder, Golliver, Keller.

Also be sure to check out our week-4 top running backs and receivers.

Read the full story with The Grand Rapids Press: “Covenant Christian hangs on..”