MONTAGUE – When the players on the Fruitport boys basketball team raised their district championship trophy on Friday night, they were making school history, in the truest sense of that term.

None of them were alive the last time Fruitport won a boys basketball district title. Neither were their parents, or their grandparents, for that matter.

The last time was way back in 1938, three years before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into World War II.

And that was the only district championship the Trojan boys ever won.

So Fruitport’s dominant 58-46 victory over Spring Lake in the Division 2 district championship game at Montague High School will always go down as the one that brought the program into the modern age.

The Trojans are now  21-3 on the season. They will play Grand Rapids Catholic on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. in the first round of regionals at Fremont High School.

“I’ve never had a better feeling in my athletic life and career than tonight,” said Fruitport head coach Steve Erny. “You know, it’s obviously been forever since Fruitport’s one district championship. 
Seems like we’ve been on the cusp in recent years, but for our guys, to put a full performance together tonight on the floor, especially on one end of that floor, on the defensive end, man, that’s the kind of basketball I love to see.”

Erny was the guy who was probably the most aware of the program’s long drought. He took over the team nine years ago, knowing he had a ton of rebuilding to do as he tried to battle the tide of a losing history.

Erny’s teams struggled more than they won for the first six years, before things started to improve. The Trojans broke through and won a conference title last season, when they posted a very nice 17-5 record, and repeated that feat this season, when they went 19-3.

But it didn’t seem complete without a trophy from some level of the state tournament, because, after all, high school basketball is mostly focused on what happens during March Madness.

That’s why Erny was jumping around and grinning like a happy teenage player himself, in the moments after his team sealed the win, putting the ghosts of failed tournament games of the past to rest.

“We’re just so proud of our boys,” Erny said. “They did it. And, yeah, I’m beyond ecstatic. 
And as I told the guys down in the locker room, one of my most favorite things right now to think about is that we still get to be together. We still get to keep doing practice. We still get to have another game.”

There was probably no better team for the Trojans to break their postseason slump against than the Lakers, their archrivals in every sport, who have dominated them in boys basketball for years.

The Trojans’ frustration against Spring Lake even infected the current season, great as it was, because the Lakers handed them one of their three losses, way back in December.

But there was no rerun on Friday night, because the Trojans scored the first three points of the game, and except for a brief 5-5 tie, led the entire way.

”To finally get over the hump, and to do it against Spring Lake, I mean, that feels great,” Erny said. “I have all the respect in the world for (veteran Laker coach) Bill Core. 
He said some really nice things there at the end. Just congratulating me. He knows the history, and I truly know that he’s happy for me and for our team.”

The hero of the game was sophomore Dexter Lillmars, the young phenom who arrived on the scene last year as a freshman and has had led the team in scoring ever since.

He scored a game-high 28 points, including 17 in the first half. Lillmars actually outscored Spring Lake all by himself in the first two quarters, 17-12.

It was a huge bounce-back game for Lillmars, who was feeling sick in Wednesday’s district semifinal win over Orchard View and only scored 10 points, far below his average.

“Dexter told me during pregame, ‘Coach, I’m feeling 100 percent,'” Erny said.
”And then he comes out and scores in the 20s like he always does. He had some big shots. Maybe we’re up 10, 12, and he puts us up 15. They they take it down to nine, maybe, and he puts us up 12.

“It just seems like Dexter Lillmars has a little bit of that side to him that’s like, ‘I’m gonna be the guy to answer.’ And, boy, he answered tonight.”

Lillmars said he was determined to get his game back on Friday.

“It felt great,” he said. ”I’ve been sick the past week, but I wanted to give everything I could tonight.

“It’s been like 89 years or something. It’s kind of crazy. But we’re very fortunate and I’m just proud of this super great team.”

Fruitport’s stifling defensive effort was the other big difference in the game. The Trojans completed shut down the Lakers’ attack, holding them to 10 points in the first quarter, only two in the second and seven in the third.

The game was not nearly as close as the final score suggested. Only a 27-point effort by the Lakers in the fourth quarter made the outcome look like a little less of a drubbing.

Fruitport led 37-16 late in the third quarter, and 46-23 with 5:13 left in the game.

Spring Lake missed tons of shots from close range as the game went on, and it was pretty clear that the Trojan D had rattled the Lakers and threw them off their game.

“I mean, they couldn’t score, you know?” Erny said. “We contested almost everything they had. 
We didn’t do anything complicated or crazy. We just played really, really hard. 
And that just makes the coach really smile when the effort levels were through the roof, you know?”

Fruitport had a strong first quarter and led 18-10 headed into the second, behind 10 points from Lillmars.

The Trojans had an 11-2 advantage in the second quarter and led 29-12 at halftime.

The teams were more even in the third quarter, but Fruitport still managed to outscore Spring Lake 10-7 to take a 39-19 lead into the final quarter.

Spring Lake finally started scoring down the stretch and had a 27-19 advantage in the fourth, but it was too little, too late for the Lakers.

Hudson Hazekamp scored 12 points for the Trojans while DayDay Williams added 11.

The players mobbed each other, and were mobbed by their fellow students and fans, after they accepted the trophy.

“It’s kind of hard to describe,” Hazekamp said about the feeling of being district champions. “It’s a great feeling. Just with how close we are as a group, it kind of feels like destiny. It’s really just amazing.

“We knew that it had been a long time. But we knew that we were the team that could do it.”

Williams, a fourth-year starter and career 1,000-point scorer, was thrilled to finally see all the hard work lead to a trophy in the postseason.

“It just feels great,” Williams said. “It really feels like a dream. It’s just everything that we’ve worked for. I’m happy to see it all work out.”