Wyoming Godwin Heights’ Richard Major, left, yells with his teammate Leon Redd after Redd scores and was fouled late in their 70-64 win over Milan in the Class B semifinal on March 27, 2015 in East Lansing.
Lamar Norman was only a freshman last season when he had two distinctly different performances at the Breslin Center as Wyoming Godwin Heights advanced to the Class B final four.
In a semifinal victory, Norman missed all seven shots he took. But the next night he hit seven of nine shots, including all three of his three-point attempts, for 17 points as Godwin Heights captured the Class B state championship.
Which version was the real Norman? The second one.
Norman, 6-feet-3, is having an excellent sophomore season, averaging 21 points as the 10-1 Wolverines sit atop the Class B rankings.
“He’s a big-time player,” said Godwin Heights coach Tyler Whittemore. “The bigger the game the better game Lamar’s going to have offensively and defensively. He really steps his game up.”
Norman is the driving force for the Wolverines, who haven’t loss since dropping the opener to Class A Hudsonville.
“It’s just his explosiveness,” Whittemore said. “He can change speeds and change direction very well. He’s got good ball skills, and right now the game is just starting to slow down for him and the game is getting easier for him. Once things slow down more for him, he’s going to look that much quicker, being more instinctive.”
Making Norman’s adjustment easier is the steadying influence of senior Leon Redd, who is averaging 19 points and gives the Wolverines a dynamic duo at the forward spots.
“Having Leon on one side and Lamar on the other makes it very difficult for teams to shrink the court or get the ball out of one of their hands because the other is just as explosive,” Whittemore said. “And they’re really different, too. It’s difficult to scheme against them.”
If a team can somehow come up with an effective scheme to stop the two forwards, junior point guard Christian Rodriguez is capable of scoring 20 points on any given night.
The Wolverines also benefit from the presence of 6-3 junior Kelvyn Valdez, a potential Division I football recruit, and the emergence of 6-5 sophomore Markeese Hastings, who is developing into more than just a back-to-the-basket player.
We will know more about Godwin Heights’ chances to repeat as state champs after next weekend. The night after playing Class C runner-up Grand Rapids NorthPointe Christian, the Wolverines play surging Saginaw on Saturday at Grand Rapids Union.
“We’ve got to be ready to sit down and really, really stop them from getting to the basket and hopefully limit their shots and contest them and get those rebounds,” Whittemore said. “That one is going to be fast, that one is going to be a very fast game. I’m excited to watch that one in person.”
Mick McCabe’s boys prep basketball rankings
Gondrezick gets a record
A midrange jump shot from the wing in the early moments of Benton Harbor’s girls game Friday proved to be historic.
The jumper made Kysre Gondrezick the all-time leading scorer in southwest Michigan, surpassed the record of 2,422 career points by Kim Knuth, who lit up scoreboards for St. Joseph in 1991-94.
Gondrezick, who signed with Michigan, finished with 39 points, giving her 2,460 career points, the seventh highest total in state history. Central Lake’s Jasmine Hines, a senior at Michigan State, holds the state record with 3,034 points.
The 39 points were Gondrezick’s lowest output in some time.
A week ago Friday, she scored 44 points against Portage Northern, and Tuesday she broke her school single-game record with 54 points in an 80-71 loss to Mattawan.
“I wasn’t aware of the record until she scored the 54 and the Herald-Palladium said she was one point away,” said Benton Harbor coach Lisa Harvey-Gondrezick, Kysre’s mother. “We haven’t focused on the individual accolades. One thing that we say is milestones are just measurements, but it’s the team goals.”
Despite being the focal point of every defense, Gondrezick has emerged as a phenomenal scorer, averaging 40.5 points, 7.8 rebounds and 5.7 assists. Earlier this season, she had seven consecutive games of 40 or more points and three times has topped 50.
“She’s very unselfish,” said Harvey-Gondrezick. “She’s doing what our team needs to win. She’s not doing what she needs to do for her own individual accomplishments.”
After advancing to the Class B semifinals last season, the Tigers lost three players to Division I basketball, including point guard Kalabrya Gondrezick, Kysre’s sister and a freshman at MSU, and the Tigers have struggled to a 6-6 record.
“Clearly we’re working with a challenge with our skill sets with some of our kids,” said Harvey-Gondrezick. “Jawana Young is playing well for us and is averaging 12 or 13 points a game, however, we need other individual kids to step up, and so our interior presence is an area that we need to strengthen in order for us to advance in the tournament.”
Contact Mick McCabe: 313-223-4744 or mmccabe@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @mickmccabe1.
Perry A. Farrell’s prep girls basketball rankings
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