The Shrine Catholic Knights won the CHSL C-D Championship with a 49-38 win over Waterford Our Lady of the Lakes. The game was played on Sunday February 28, 2016 at Calihan Hall in Detroit. (Ken Swart / MIPrepZone)DETROIT -- The Shrine Knights battled hard at Calihan Hall at the University of Detroit Mercy and took home the Catholic High School League C-D Championship over the Our Lady of the Lakes Lakers, 49-38. It was the first Catholic League title for Shrine since the 1978 season.
“It’s a beautiful thing,” said Shrine head coach Jim Skaggs of the victory. “This was a complete team effort.”
The Knights (14-6) defeated the Cristo Rey Wolves by 22 points in the C-D tournament opener and went on to defeat the Gabriel Richard Pioneers by four points to advance to the championship, which they won by 11 points.
As for the Lakers (15-3), they owned a first round bye and defeated the Cardinal Mooney Cardinals by three points behind 21 points off the hand of Devin Senerius.
“We knew winning a Catholic League title would go through Lakes, that’s been the focus all year long,” Skaggs said.
Andrew Kline struggled for Our Lady of the Lakes. Usually, Kline is good for a more than 20 points, but Sunday afternoon was not the same for the senior guard. Freshman guard Noah Robak started to bring the team back with two three-point jumpers in one minute during the fourth quarter, but it just was not enough. Robak and junior Isaac Oliver finished with 10 points each in the loss.
At halftime, the Knights held a 23-21 lead over the Lakers, but had more momentum than the score showed. The Knights forced Kline and the Lakers to shoot with a poor shot selection, while Shrine did a great job of pushing the ball and getting fast break points.
Scoring a game-high 16 points for Shrine was Michael Niehaus, who led the team offensively and defensively. Along with the game-high in points, Niehaus added eight boards. Freshsman guard AJ Massucci came off the bench and surprised everyone with a two three-point jumpers late in the third quarter to give Shrine a eight-point cushion over Our Lady of the Lakes entering the fourth quarter.
“It means everything to us,” said Niehaus. “I mean, we’ve been working for this. We talk about it all the time, and we know we’re gonna be up there for a while. Part of history now.”
Ethan Groth, who pulled down a game-high 14 rebounds, and Jeremy Reece combined for five late free throws to seal the deal for the Knights.
“Just a horrible game on our part,” said Our Lady of the Lakes head coach Paul Robak, who saw his team shoot 26 percent from the field. “That’s a testament to Shrine and how well they played though. For us, we’ve got to play better. We’re reading too many press clippings telling us how great we are instead of going out on the floor and proving it. These next couple weeks will tell us what we’re made of.”
