HOLTON – You have to wonder how Friday’s Division 3 girls basketball district championship game would have turned out if Hart’s roster had been completely healthy.
The Pirates lost Jayd Hovey, an exceptional senior guard, to an ACL tear in their fifth game of the season.
Hart still did great in the regular season, winning its first West Michigan Conference title in three decades with a perfect league record.
But the Pirates’ big season came to a disappointing end on Friday.
They relinquished a 10-point lead in the third quarter, struggled to get their offense going during the second half, and lost to Western Michigan Christian 61-47 at Holton High School.
[1]Hart finished the season with an outstanding 17-4 record.
The Pirates were hoping for a similar result from a game in December, when they cruised past WMC 53-36, but a cold second half doomed those aspirations.
“I felt that they were able to take control of the way the game was going,” said Hart coach Travis Rosema. “They took away our drives and we weren’t getting the fouls we were getting during the first half. And we just didn’t make shots until late in the game.”
The Pirates jumped out to an 18-13 lead after one quarter, led by Abby Hicks and Addison Hovey with six points apiece.
Hart outscored the Warriors by a slim 11-10 margin in the second quarter to take a 29-23 lead at halftime.
The Pirates scored the first four points of the third quarter on buckets from Hovey and Aspen Boutell to take a 33-23 lead, but then their luck ran out.
[2]Hart only managed to score three points during the final seven minutes of the third quarter, and failed to convert a basket from the field.
The Warriors outscored Hart by a 19-7 in the third to take a 42-36 lead into the final quarter.
The basket continued to have a lid on it in the fourth quarter for the Pirates, who finally made a field goal with 2:15 remaining in the game, ending a drought of 13 minutes without a field goal.
The Warriors outscored Hart 19-11 during the fourth quarter, with 11 of WMC’s points coming from the free throw line.
The Pirates were led by Hicks with 17 points, Boutell with 15 and Addison Hovey with 12.
“We have a lot of relentless players, and everyone wants to talk about Jayd (Hovey),” Coach Rosema said. “She is amazing, but the bigger story to me is how her teammates stepped up and did a great job to win the conference. If the ball bounced differently, we could have won this game.”