FRUITPORT TOWNSHIP – When the Richards era ended for the Fruitport Calvary Christian girls basketball team, most people assumed that the championship era was over, as well.

Coach Brad Richards did his magic on the bench for 10 seasons, and all three of his daughters took their turns as All-State standouts.

Kelsey Richards, the last of the daughters, graduated in 2020, and Brad Richards moved over to coach the boys varsity, which immediately went from bad to pretty good last season, and really good this season.

Meanwhile the girls team struggled, to nobody’s surprise, posting a 5-7 record last season with no Richards around.

The girls came into this season with few expectations, and fans anticipating more of the same. But Coach Matt Payton had a funny feeling.

“I was talking with one of my assistant coaches early in the season, and I said, ‘People might not expect much out of us, even at our own school, but I see some stuff, and I think we can do some things,’” Payton said. “He said he could see it, too.”

It turns out those coaches were right. The Eagles are off to a really good 7-1 start following a 65-36 victory over West Michigan Aviation Academy last Tuesday, and suddenly look like a team that could regain the Alliance League championship and perhaps make some noise in the state tournament.

The lone loss came in the season opener, 49-46 to Saugatuck. Since then the Eagles have beaten Fruitport (52-47), Hesperia (43-31), Holland Black River (61-23), West Michigan Lutheran (64-8), Orchard View (67-25), Zion Christian (38-34), and West Michigan Aviation Academy. They will resume play at Holland Black River on Tuesday.

“At the beginning of the season, we just talked,” Coach Payton said. “Last year we had several people trying to pull their own way. I told them that doesn’t work, and it clicked with them. We’re all headed in the same direction this season, which is huge. They are open to trying new things. My goal is to teach basketball and the whys behind it, so they can see things for themselves on the court. Now they are doing a great job of identifying situations and seeing things for themselves.”

One big key to the Eagles’ success this season was switching styles – playing at a faster pace offensively and applying lots of pressure on defense, Payton said.

“Everybody bought in to the style of play,” the coach said.  “We’re a small team, so our style is relentless pressure, offensively and defensively, and moving up and down the court a lot more than we did in the past. The girls have been working hard and have really bought in and decided it was fun to play this way, and they are really playing together as a team.

“We just want to win. We’ve had six different people score in double figures, which is pretty good.”

The new style of play definitely suits 5-5 starting point guard McKena Wilson, who is averaging 18.2 points, 4 steals and 3 assists per game.

“She just continues to get better and better,” Payton said. “She’s our point guard and leading scorer. We’ve been trying to make her an all-around player and not just a scorer. She’s doing a great job defensively and finding her teammates pretty well, too.”

Other statistical leaders on the team are Cate Anhalt (12 points, 4 rebounds, 5 steals, 3.2 assists per game); Avneet Cheema (8 points, 5 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 2.5 steals per game) and Nora Pollack (5 points, 6 steals per game).

“They’re just great kids,” Payton said about his entire team. “If you see us coming out for warmups or stepping off the bus, we’re not going to impress anybody. We’re small, but we have some speed and we all work together.”

The team’s success has come despite some real challenges, including the fact that the team only has eight players on the roster.

When asked if he sometimes calls up junior varsity players for practice, or to add a little depth in games, Payton said no, because there is no JV team.

The eight players on the varsity are all the players in the high school’s girls basketball program – period.

“It’s very challenging,” Payton said. “We had two games with two people out sick, se we had to play with six. The last game we only had six players and three of them had four fouls. We really had to slow it down and burn some clock!”

The Eagles have also managed to improve despite a really big gap in their schedule this season.

They’ve had three games cancelled for various reasons – one before the long Christmas holiday and two after – so the Eagles went a month without playing a game, just as they were hitting their pace for the season.

That might have been a recipe for disaster in terms of focus, but the Eagles doubled down during practice and continued to work on their game, and emerged from the long break in great shape.

‘It’s pretty hard in that situation for the kids to stay mentally focused, but the girls have worked really hard and came out a different team that they were before (the long break),” Payton said. “And we’re not done improving. We haven’t reached that peak yet.”