Even though a majority of the schools in West Michigan were shut down due to the slushy conditions on Tuesday, the Grand Rapids Christian Unified Basketball Team plowed their way out to Holland High School and then cleaned up on the court for a hard fought 28 to 21 victory over the Dutch.  The contest resembled last week’s Calvin versus Hope match up with neither team finding much touch from the perimeter.  The Dutch then flexed their muscle early and often on the glass and jumped out to a 13 to 7 lead.  But a fiery halftime speech got the GRC partners – Adia Sikkema, Payton Holtz, Hannah-Grace Wildschut, Ella Wolters, Keira Porte, Jake Koetje, Micah Small, and Andrew Schepel – amped up as they were able to motivate the rest of the team to turn it up a notch.

The comeback effort was spearheaded by Max “the Bissell” Damstra.  Max has figured out that a missed shot by his teammate (one to whom shall remain nameless) is as good as a pass and spends his time corralling board after board and softy putting back the bunnies for easy points. Another double-double on the books for the big guy.  His fellow forward Joash Mallick is turning out to be the assist man on the team – and in fact passed up some easy looks for attempts at an assist.  Joash is spending time tonight with Isaac Muller reviewing the Huddle video of the game to explain the entire concept of the teammate to teammate pass.  Speaking of film study, Holland had definitely done their homework on the deadly shooting of Faith Kelly as they sent defenders flying at her to attempt and disrupt her feathery jumper.  Luckily our partners figured out that moving screens ARE legal in Unified Basketball and began to create a shooting wall around Faith to allow her to launch a few baseline beauties and swish them through.  Due to the early national television tip time of 3:00 our Junior High weapons of Yang Feng Wildschut and Wyatt Lovell were not able to attend.

The Eagles wrap up the third game of their West Michigan road trip this Friday at Kenowa Hills High School with a start time of 4:30 PM.  See you there.  Go Eagles!