USA 50, CASS CITY 47

Holland’s first career three-pointer beats Cass City at the buzzer of district finale
BY CHRIS OGRYSKI
Editor
SEBEWAING- USA’s Tim Holland has never been known as a three-point shooter. That part of his repertoire has stayed well-hidden during his two years playing in the post for the Patriots.
In fact, despite shooting them in practice and every day at lunch, Holland had taken just one three-pointer in his varsity career (he missed) prior to the last play of the USA-Cass City district final last Friday night. With the game tied at 47 apiece with 0.9 seconds left, the Patriots inbounded the ball from the sideline and hit Holland, who caught it, turned around and drilled the 25 footer to give USA their fourth straight district crown.
“It was a hope and a prayer and the prayer was answered,” Patriot coach Mark Gainforth said.
“My mindset was, we’ll isolate Tim down on the block, hopefully they go one-on-one down there so we might get a foul (and get to the line),” he added. “Apparently Tim couldn’t get position, so we threw it out to the perimeter to him and he turned and shot it.”
It was the second time Holland beat the Red Hawks with a last second shot this season. On Feb. 4, he scored the game-winning basket with 4.4 seconds left to beat Cass City 57-56.
“It nice being able to do it twice, but it is even better doing it and winning a district championship,” Holland said of his pair of game-winners. “I’m so glad we’re going to be able to go to Regionals again, but it would be even better if we can go farther.”
But early in the second half, it didn’t look like USA would make it out of districts as the Red Hawks used a 21-11 run to tie the game at 41 early in the fourth.
“(Coming out of the half) we were happy. We were up 10 (30-20) and we were at home, but the wheels fell off,” Gainforth explained. “Offensively, we got stagnant and their kids stepped up and made shots.”
He added, “(Brent) Doerr (nine points, seven in the second half) made some shots that he hadn’t made against us… (Chris) Summersett (16 points) was just a tough guard for us all night. He was the hardest guy to stop.”
While Cass City’s offense was firing on all cylinders, Lance VanHoost was the only player to getting on offense, as he six of his 13 points in the third.
“We just couldn’t really get anyone going and I credit their defense. We stopped moving, we settled for jump shots and didn’t get any second shots,” Gainforth said. “They got three pretty big kids in the middle…and they make you earn their points.”
As things got tight late in the game, Gainforth decided the best course of action for a struggling offense was to run some clock. “That is why we pulled it out with two or three minutes to go. We wanted to spread them out a bit and see if we could get in the lane,” he said.
“Brandon got some good shots in there, but they just didn’t go down,” he added.
One of those near misses came on the second from the last possession for the Patriots, as after running down the clock to about 12 seconds left, Bitzer drive to the basket and pulled up for a jump shot, which didn’t fall. Both teams battled for the ball and with 3.1 seconds left, Cass City got the ball back on a held ball.
But the Red Hawks long pass was picked off at mid-court by Holland, who was fouled, giving USA their final opportunity, which turned into the game-winner. “I was really prepared for overtime and praying that things would start going our way,” Gainforth said. “I couldn’t tell you what would have happened in overtime.”
With the win the Patriots advanced to the regionals on Bad Axe this past Monday, where they faced Flint Beecher. A victory in the regional semis would give USA a shot at the Brown City/Saginaw Nouvel winner tonight.
As for preparing for Beecher over the weekend, Gainforth explained, “I really enjoy Regionals, because you go in there pretty fresh. We know something about them, maybe they know something about us. But there are no triangle-and-twos and no diamond-and-ones, you really just go and play.”
He added, “You have to adjust to the quickness right away and you can’t be timid. You have to play aggressively and do the things that got you to this point.”