Skip to Main Content

Unity Christian Athletics

Faith...Excellence...Service

Menu

Unity Christian Athletics

Faith...Excellence...Service

Unity Christian Athletics

Faith...Excellence...Service

Team News.

Team News

8.0 years ago @ 8:00AM by Corey Olsen- MLive

Unity Christian takes out Forest Hills Eastern, exceeding coach's preseason expectations

By Cory Olsen | colsen@mlive.com 
on March 16, 2016 10:12 PM

HUDSONVILLE, MI — A sea of people gathered around one end of the Unity Christian High School basketball court Wednesday evening to watch a sight they’ve never seen at this school. The cutting of the nets.

The Crusaders defeated Forest Hills Eastern 46-42 in the Region 10 final and the team celebrated in their new gymnasium in style. “Last year was a tough year for us,” Senior Mitchel Takens said while watching his teammates cut down pieces of the net. “We had a really good team and we got knocked out in the district finals. So this year we felt like we had something to prove a little bit.”

The journey almost ended immediately in their first district game when the Crusaders struggled against Allendale before finally winning in triple-overtime. Wednesday Unity controlled much of the action against the Hawks but missed some key foul shots near the end to make it closer than it should have been.

“It’s just been a heck of a ride,” Takens said. “We’ve had so much fun in this experience. It was a little closer than we wanted at the end but it’s just survive and advance after that. You just keep playing and move on.”

Crusaders coach Scott Soodsma said this team has certainly exceeded his preseason expectations. “We did not see this at the beginning of the year,” Soodsma said. “They have come a long, long ways. “We were trying to be realistic. We were hoping to get around 500 at the end of the year and maybe make a run at a district. We didn’t really have any more expectations than that.” But as the year went on, expectations rose, Soodsma said. “These kids worked really hard and got better. We started out 2-5 and now we’re 16-8 so that’s a great run. We definitely have gotten better as we’ve gone on and that’s a real tribute to the kids.”

Part of that improvement has been on the shoulders of individuals like Takens, who scored a team-high 13 points Wednesday night. “The second half of the year I’ve felt so much more confident than I’ve ever felt,” Takens said. “We lost some seniors last year and it really just came to a point where I said that I have to step up and other seniors stepped up.“We’ve really come together as a team and we’re gelling really well right now. It’s just been really fun.”

The Hawks had just four players score points in the game, but three of those were in double-digits. Josh Karafa led his team with 15 points while Chase Krueger and Steven Harvey both scored 13. Jay Byle scored one point.

Unity Christian advances to the quarterfinals where they’ll play Stevensville Lakeshore on Tuesday.

Team News

8.0 years ago @ 11:01PM by Nick Balcer

Unity Treats Packed House to Regional Semi-Final Win

Hudsonville- On Monday night for the first time in more than a decade Unity hosted Regional Boys Basketball games. This one had a special headline to it; Unity was playing. 

Before a record crowd at the new Unity gymnasium, Unity powered past Coopersville 62-53. The Crusaders were led by the duo of Mitch Takens and Austin Steenwyk who scored 44 of Unity's 62 points. Takens led all scorers with 27 points on 10 of 16 shooting from the field including 4 of 5 from the 3 point line. Steenwyk would add 17 points and Brevin DeBoer added 8 of the 11 bench points for the Crusaders. 

The Broncos would come out fast and take an 11-5 lead midway through the first quarter.  They would hold on to a 3 point margin after the 1st quarter, 13-10. That would be the last they saw of the lead. After only shooting 36% from the field in the first quarter, shots began to fall for Unity as they would drop 24 points in the second quarter by way of 69% shooting, including 4 of 4 from the charity stripe and would take a 34-28 edge to the locker room. 

The Crusaders would continue their good shooting in the 3rd quarter as they added another 18 points to push their way to their lead to the largest of the night at 12, 50-38. They entered the 4th quarter with a 52-43 advantage. Unity slowed up the tempo of the game and Coopersville took advantage of a few turnovers to cut the lead to 5 at 55-50. Out of a timeout Unity would get a key basket from Takens after he found himself open on the wing for a 3 pointer that moved the lead back to 8. Unity would hold on to the lead and the ball for the last few minutes and secure a 62-53 victory over the Broncos. 

Unity advances to the Regional Championship game on Wednesday March 16 against Forest Hills Eastern. The game will be played at Unity, with tip-off scheduled for 7:00pm. 

The Broncos were led by Nicholas Dekkinga & Kyle Gura who had 17 & 15 points respectively. The loss ends Coopersville's season as they finish with a record of 16-7. 

 

MLive Article Link: Mitchell Takens scores 27 points as Unity Christian reaches Class B regional final

Team News

8.0 years ago @ 3:06PM

Unity Christian survives triple overtime to defeat Allendale in Class B district semifinal

MLive article By Steve Ungrey | Steven_Ungrey@mlive.com 
on March 10, 2016 12:04 AM

Approximately 16 years ago, Unity Christiancoach Scott Soodsma endured a rugged contest where his Crusaders went triple overtime with Forest Hills Northern.

His team survived another three-overtime thriller on Wednesday and lived another day on the court.

The Crusaders overcame 33 points from Allendale standout Hunter Greer and scored a 58-52 victory on Wednesday in the Class B district semifinals.

Unity Christian (12-8 overall) will face Holland Christian on Friday in a rematch of two OK Green teams.

"This game really was wild," Soodsma said. "We had some obvious really exciting ebbs and flows by both teams. Both had chances to win and keep it going."

Allendale (17-4) beat Unity Christian by seven points in the regular-season meeting between the teams, but this meeting swung back and forth like a fast-moving pendulum.

For starters, the Falcons led 19-17 at halftime. Unity Christian outscored Allendale 20-8 in the third quarter, but Allendale outscored the Crusaders 14-4 in the fourth quarter and forced overtime.

"It was a heartbreaker," Allendale coach Joe Modderman said. "Especially as a coach and my fifth year at Allendale, I'm still trying to get this thing in the right direction. I've got some great kids and they have tried to get a little better each year. It hurts because the kids played so hard and gave everything they put into it."

Unity Christian shut down standout Nate Umlor, who scored five points for Allendale.

"They did a tremendous job on Nate, double-teaming him. And they found a way to get it done," Modderman said. "I would have liked some of those possessions and timeouts back. I apologized to the guys for not finding a way to get it done. You can't single out one possession because that's not what athletics are all about."

Allendale, which has won back-to-back OK Blue championships, loses one starter and three reserves to graduation.

Mitchell Takens led Unity Christian with 16 points. Austin Steenwyk (13 points) and Sam DeMey (11 points) were also in double figures.

Soodsma said his team's defense hung firm until the offense came around.

"That was the difference in the game," Soodsma said. "It wasn't one of our better shooting nights but defensively we hung around."

Unity Christian went down to the wire in an overtime game against Holland Christian earlier this season, but the key is how the team will respond.

"They essentially played another half game on top of a regular game tonight," Soodsma said.

Steve Ungrey is a high school sports writer for MLive. Follow him on Twitter, like him on Facebook, or send him an e-mail.


https://unitychristianathletics.org