Boys Basketball: Simeon fends off Benet in Pontiac Tournament final

PONTIAC – In order for someone to topple powerful Simeon in a game this season, two things probably are going to have to happen.

First, an opponent will need to catch the Wolverines on a night when they might not be in the midst of one of their better efforts.

Second, those in search of an upset will have to put together an extremely cohesive effort and extremely limit or completely eliminate mistakes.

Benet got those two things during the second half of the Pontiac Holiday Tournament championship game Dec. 30, but the foibles of the first half proved to be too much to overcome as Simeon outlasted a determined and previously undefeated Benet 52-49 to win its second consecutive Pontiac title. The title was the 11th overall under veteran Simeon coach Robert Smith, who is retiring at the conclusion of the season.

It was the first loss of the season for the Redwings (16-1), who have come up short in three tries at the championship trophy at Pontiac.

“I’m really proud of our guys,” Benet coach Gene Heidkamp said. “We were dead in the water in the first half and played about as poorly as we could play. We were 6 for 27 in the first half and couldn’t stop them defensively, but our guys kept plugging along and plugging along and they never quit. We got it down to one but couldn’t get over the hump.

“I give them a lot of credit. They [Simeon] are the No. 1 team in the state for a reason.”

After Benet dug itself a substantial hole in the first half, Benet forward Nikola Abusara did all he could to revive the Redwings’ hopes. Abusara scored nine third-quarter points to get the game to a somewhat manageable position. Simeon led by 11 at the end of three quarters.

Benet kept pushing by scoring 10 of the first 12 points of the fourth quarter and pulled to within 44-42 with 2:13 to play, but Simeon’s battle-tested performers continued to parry the advances when it mattered the most. A basket from Jashon Liggett, who played sparingly in the game, kept the lead at four (46-42) and when Benet answered with a basket from Brady Kunka, Simeon responded again with a tough runner from Jalen Griffith, who led Simeon scorers with 17 points.

After a Benet miss on the other end, Sam Lewis threw down a dunk that stretched the lead back to six (50-44), but a Brayden Fagbemi 3-pointer kept the window slightly cracked open.

It got wider seconds later when Benet forced a turnover and Sam Driscoll was in the right spot at the right time, scooping in a layup to winnow the Simeon lead to 50-49 with 13 seconds to play.

But Lewis (15 points) knocked down free throws with Benet forced to foul and a 3-point attempt for the Redwings wouldn’t fall.

None of that looked even remotely possible after a dominant Simeon first half.

Simeon scored the first five points of the game, but Benet answered that salvo by scoring the next five points to knot things up. The Wolverines rattled off the final 10 points of the first quarter and then rattled off a 14-4 run to start the second quarter to carry a 29-13 lead into the half.

Abusara led Benet with 17 points and was joined on the all-tournament team by Fagbemi, who finished with 13. Kunka (nine points, eight rebounds) was a second-team pick.

Heidkamp couldn’t help but wonder what might have been had his team played even slightly better than it did in the first 16 minutes.

“You know what, we thought we had a pretty good team coming in here. And maybe that validated it,” Heidkamp said. “But we came here to win, make no mistake, and we knew we were playing Simeon but we were disappointed in the outcome. There’s no moral victory here. And we had played so poorly, and if we just played a little bit better in the first half, the day might have been different.”