HART – The torch was supposed to be passed in the Hovey family at the conclusion of the current girls basketball season.

Instead it happened in December, on a gloomy night when everyone was focused on a disappointing injury, and few really noticed a breakout performance.

A few weeks earlier, Hart standout Jayd Hovey had launched her senior season, and everyone expected it to great one.

The two-time honorable mention All-State guard was one of four starters returning to a team that went 14-4 last season.

High on the Pirates’ list of priorities was finally overtaking Montague and winning a West Michigan Conference championship.

The Pirates had finished second behind Montague for two straight years and were more than ready to take the next step and finally win the crown.

Then the situation changed dramatically on Dec. 14, when the Pirates faced rival Shelby in their fifth game of the season.

“One of my teammates got a steal and threw it ahead to me on the left side,” Jayd Hovey told MuskegonSports.com. “I drove to the middle of the paint and stopped to take a jump shot, then my right knee just kind of gave out, and there was a lot of pain.”

Hovey left the game, and soon learned she had a torn ACL and would need reconstructive surgery, which she finally had last Thursday. Just like that, her season and varsity career were over.

But something else happened in that game against Shelby, although it didn’t gain much notice at the time.

Her sister Addison Hovey, a talented freshman who was just breaking into the starting lineup, found her confidence that night, scoring 19 points and leading the Pirates to victory.

Her sudden emergence meant that the Pirates would still have one outstanding Hovey in the lineup, along with other talented starters and role players, and the season was far from lost.

“I jokingly told her she didn’t start playing well until I got hurt,” Jayd Hovey said about her little sister. “I think me being gone helped her in some respects. She had to learn to trust her other teammates and extend her support to other people and bond with them.”

Hart head coach Travis Rosema doesn’t think Jayd’s injury had much to do with her sister’s emergence on the court.

“When you look at it, her numbers were better after Jayd went down, but I think it was just a matter of her getting used to varsity and feeling more comfortable,” said Rosema, whose 16-3 team will begin district tournament play on Wednesday night at Holton High School. “She might have been trying too hard. Then she got settled in during that Shelby game and just took off from there.”

Addison doesn’t think the injury impacted her game one way or another, but she certainly wishes it had never happened.

“Either way I would have gotten better, with or without her, but it was more fun with her,” said Addison, who has been averaging around 11 points, seven rebounds and four steals per game.

‘We knew we could do it’

The Pirates continued to plow ahead without their longtime star in the lineup, winning 10 of their next 12 games, including all eight of their conference matchups.

That brought them to their final showdown at Montague on Feb. 17, with the conference title once again on the line. The Pirates had beaten the Wildcats by one point earlier in the season and came in with a one-game lead in the standings.

Hart dominated the game, winning 47-35 to claim their program’s first West Michigan Conference title in three decades.

Addison Hovey led the way with 17 points, including eight in the third quarter, while Aspen Boutell scored 14, including six from the free throw line.

After three years of struggling and coming so close, the Pirates had accomplished what nobody on the outside thought they could do without Jayd Hovey.

Jayd watched the game from the bench and couldn’t have been more thrilled with how her teammates performed.

“I was so unbelievably proud,” she said. ‘I don’t think they lost an ounce of faith in what the team could accomplish. I think a lot of that came from the coaches. They handled it really well. It was never like ‘We lost Jayd, now we can’t do this.’ It was ‘We’re going to need some players to step up and fill holes. You’re going to step up because we know you can.’”

Coach Rosema said he knew he had a deep roster that could pull together and win the title, even with his star out for the year.

He first saw evidence of that at a team camp last summer at Grand Valley State University.

“Jayd had suffered an ankly injury in travel ball, and we played some good games there without her,” Rosema said. “I saw the passion the girls had for the game and the time they put in. There was never a doubt in my mind.

“There was never a moment of feeling sorry for ourselves. We knew we could do it. We just kept up with our process.

“It definitely made other players step up more. Addison’s numbers, in particular, have been going up since Jayd’s injury, and Mariana VanAgtmael and Abby Hicks have had some double-figure games. And we have had great leadership from Aspen Boutell. We saw a lot of growth from all of the players on the team.

“We talked about the injury. I said obviously Jayd is out for the year, but we can still accomplish what we want to accomplish. We just need people to step up.”

The victory was particularly sweet for Rosema, who began as the junior varsity coach seven years ago, serving under Stacy Hovey, who became the varsity coach the same year. Stacy Hovey is Jayd and Addison’s mom.

“Seven years ago Stacy and I started together, and the program was kind of in rough shape,” he said. “We were just in the process of building it up. It was just a matter of getting the kids in the gym, taking them to tournaments and getting them to play more.”

Rosema became the varsity coach four years ago, the same season Jayd Hovey joined the varsity as a freshman. The improvement process began to accelerate at that point, with the Pirates winning a district championship that season, despite posting a so-so 13-11 record.

The annual race with Montague began the next season, in 2019-20, when the Pirates came within a hair of winning the conference title.

The Pirates had beaten Montague in their first matchup that season, but were upset by Whitehall and lost a one-game lead in the standings. Hart and Montague were tied for the conference lead when they met in the final conference game of the season, and Hart nearly won.

“We had an opportunity to win in regulation,” Rosema said. “We were at the free throw line with the game tied and five seconds left in the game, but we missed both shots, and we ended up losing by three points in triple overtime.”

Last season the race wasn’t quite as tight, because the Pirates lost both games to Montague and finished in second, two games behind the Wildcats.

The Pirates were very much looking forward to this season, thinking they had the best chance they would ever have to overtake Montague, particularly with Jayd Hovey coming back for her big senior season.

Jayd didn’t get there with them on the court, but the Pirates still made it to the top, and Rosema was finally able to celebrate a conference title with his girls.

“We definitely had obstacles we had to overcome, but I never thought we couldn’t do it,” he said. “Just being with these girls has been great. All 10 of them put in a lot of time and do a lot for the program, so watching them win our first conference championship in 30 years, it was kind of emotional for me. It was just awesome.”

The injured star becomes an extra coach

It would be a mistake to say that the Pirates won the championship without Jayd Hovey, because she was there, every game, playing a different but important role.

After her initial disappointment, she stepped in as sort of an extra coach, and she made a big difference for the team from a teaching and leadership perspective, according to Rosema.

“She knows the game,” the coach said about Jayd. “It was a funny thing during that camp at Grand Valley. I had to go pick someone up at the airport one day, she coached a game in my absence, and we won by 30. The girls were jokingly saying I should let Jayd keep coaching.

“She started showing that type of leadership during her freshman year. It’s hard to be a freshman on varsity, but her leadership came through right away. You could tell she was different and special.

“She does a great job working with our guards. And there are times she can read me and see that I’m upset and want to say something to the girls, and she will say ‘Coach, I got this. They need me right now. Let me handle this.’”

Jayd, who very much talks and acts like a coach, said taking on the new role came pretty naturally.

“I’ve been on the team since my freshman year, I build a strong relationship with our coach, and when I was playing I had a pretty big leadership role,” she said. “Our coach trusted me to make decisions. Now I just try to use my experience to give everyone tips. I have been really able to focus on the guards, since that’s where I came from.”

Jayd said she spent some time working with Aspen Boutell, a junior who became the full-time point guard following the injury.

Jayd said Boutell used to sometimes step in and give her a break at point guard, then made a seamless transition since taking over the position on a full-time basis.

“She’s played with me since her freshman year, and it was really nice to have someone help with the point guard stuff,” Jayd said. “She is somebody I trust with the ball to make decisions. During the Montague game I watched her take the lead and control the ball and the pace of the game. I am proud of her and impressed with how far she’s come.”

Now that Jayd’s surgery is over, she will spend the next few months focusing on rehabbing and getting ready to play her freshman season at Indiana Wesleyan University next season.

“I’m pretty pumped about that,” she said. “I’m excited to get to the college level and learn more about the game and about myself.”

Meanwhile, the future looks very bright for the Hart girls basketball team. The Pirates will have seven players returning next season, including Boutell, VanAgtmael, Hicks, and of course Addison Hovey, who is already really good with a ton of untapped potential.

“They are different,” Rosema said about the Hovey sisters. “They are both tremendous kids and great athletes, but Addi isn’t Jayd. She has filled out and strengthened better as a freshman, and she has a great jumping ability. She can already tough the rim, and it’s amazing to see her get a rebound and how quickly she can go back up with the second shot. She’s also very fast. In the Montague game she got a steal and had five players in front of her, but she beat them all down the court while dribbling.

“Her inside game is kind of more natural to her. In middle school she was bigger and faster and stronger than everyone and learned how to score down low. But her jump shot development has been extremely good this year.”

Jayd said she’s confident that her quiet little sister will continue to improve because she’s willing to put in the work.

“Once she gains confidence in herself it really shows,” Jayd said. “A lot of has to do with the hours she puts in working out in the gym. When you put in all that time, you gain the confidence.

“She still doesn’t know how good she really is. She’s going to be scary good over the next few years.”