Wade Gooding finished with a game-high 15 points while tourney-MVP Cooper Knowles added 13 points and 12 rebounds to lead top-seed West Hancock to a 52-43 victory over Illini West and capture the title at the 79th Annual Macomb-Western Holiday BasketballTournament Tuesday night at Western Hall.
Macomb High, which fell to Illini West in a semifinal contest earlier in the day, came up short in the thirdplace game as Canton held on for 47-44 victory.
In the fifth-place matchup, Abingdon-Avon rallied in the fourth quarter to edge past Mercer County 56-52, while Monmouth- Roseville overcame a 22-point first quarter deficit to stun Liberty 51-45 and take the consolation championship.
MHS and Canton went toe-to-toe in the first quarter before Sivante Stokes’ short jumper at the buzzer gave the Little Giants an 18-17 lead after one period.
A basket by Kellen Martin gave the Bombers a 24-23 lead with just over four minutes left in the first half before Canton went on a 12-0 run to grab a 35-24 halftime advantage.
The MHS defense limited Canton to just five points in the third quarter and allowed the Bombers to cut the deficit to 40-33 heading into the final eight minutes.
The Little Giants continued to struggle offensively in the fourth quarter and MHS would get within two points on three different occasions, the last coming on a basket by Nick Elbe with 1:10 remaining to make it a 46-44 contest.
Lakon Otto made it 47-44 after converting only one of two free throw attempts with seven seconds left giving the Bombers a chance for the tie. But a Drew Watson long range three-point attempt hit the back of the rim as the buzzer sounded giving Canton the third place trophy.
Nolan Hoge paced the Bombers (9-6) with 15 points and 13 rebounds while Watson finished with 13 points and four assists.
Elbe and Isaac Leinbach added six points each, while Martin and Cooper Hobson chipped in two apiece.
Stokes led all scorers with 18 points for Canton (10-4).
MHS head coach Jeremy Anderson saw the tournament as a learning experience after seeing his squad enter unseeded and taking home a fourth place trophy.
“I think the second half of the third place game gave them a lot of confidence that they could play Canton again later in a regional and compete with them,” said Anderson. “I think all the teams are learning about their teams in this event. You still don’t really know what you have. I think we learned that we can really guard in the half court (but) we’re going to have to work on transition defense to make people have to play in the half court.”
In the earlier semifinal contest against Illini West, MHS jumped out to a 7-0 lead before a Myles Wear three-pointer put the Chargers on the board with just over four minutes left in the period. That propelled IW on an 8-2 run to get within 9-8 going into the second quarter.
The game would open up as the Chargers would take their first lead at 10-9 on a Wesley Robertson jumper before the lead would change hands two more times as two more treys from Wear propelled IW on an 11-5 run to close out the second quarter and give the Chargers a 25-21 halftime lead. IW took it largest lead of the game at 32-25 with 2:58 remaining in the third quarter before MHS went on a 10-0 run to regain the lead at 35-32 going into the final period.
The Chargers responded on a 10-0 spurt of their own to start the fourth quarter and opened up a 42-37 advantage with 3:38 remaining.
A Watson trey with 16 seconds left brought the Bombers to within 45-43 before Robertson sank one of two free throws to make it 46-43 with just over 10 seconds to go.
MHS moved the ball downcourt but a Martin three-point attempt was off the mark as time expired to give the Chargers the victory.
After going a perfect 10-for-10 from the charity stripe in their quarterfinal win overAbingdon-Avon the night before, the Bombers struggled against IW as MHS went 11-for-21 from the foul line in the loss.
“Evenly matched teams, very familiar with one another, it comes down to who executes, who keeps their composure, and who gets the 50-50 balls,” said Anderson. “Illini West got more of those than we did in that game.”
Watson finished with a game-high 11 points for Macomb.
Carter Havens added nine points, followed by Hoge with six points and nine rebounds.
Elbe scored eight points and had seven rebounds, while Martin added five points and Leinbach four for the Bombers.
Wear topped Illini West (12-3) with 18 points, while Robertson added 11 for the Chargers.
In other final tourney day action, Liberty eliminated defending champion Rockridge 60-49 while Monmouth-Roseville powered past Pittsfield 63-39. Mercer County advanced past Eureka 47-38 and Abingdon-Avon squeaked by Brown County 51-49.
In the other semifinal matchup, West Hancock held off a second half surge from Canton to pull out a 64-49 victory.
Immediately following the title game, the 2025 MWHT All-Tournament Team was announced as Knowles was the consensus MVP selection.
Other players included Hunter Froman (West Hancock), Nolan Hoge (Macomb), Alex Foutch (Abingdon-Avon), Wesley Robertson (Illini West), Reed Sparrow (Liberty), Brady McPeek (Mercer County), Lakon Otto and Sivante Stokes (Canton) and Henry Ingram (Brown County).
