By John Jarvi
Local Sports Journal

GRAND HAVEN — The Grand Haven Buccaneers showed some balance on offense and came away with a 60-48 victory in a non-league boys’ basketball game against the Grand Rapids Catholic Central Cougars Tuesday night.

The Buccaneers consistently worked the basketball inside on offense and came away with 19 baskets in 32 tries for a 59 percent mark. The point total marked a season-high for Grand Haven.

“We haven’t gotten good post looks like that in a while,” said Steve Hewitt, the Grand Haven coach. “I think all three of our post players — Ross Koella, Adam Abraham and Nic Holwerda — all scored, but we got a lot of contributions from a lot of different people.”

Holwerda had 10 points in a reserve roll while Koella and Abraham each had six points. Korey Searle, another forward, had nine points for the Buccaneers, now 3-6 overall. Connor Grimes had the scoring high with 13 points, helped by three three-point field goals.

Catholic Central, now 1-8, struggled for consistency after the opening minutes. The Cougars trailed 19-10 after the first quarter but cut the Buccaneer lead down to 25-20 at halftime.

However, Grand Haven scored the first seven points of the third quarter and controlled the tempo for most of the remaining time left in the game.

The Buccaneers led in rebounds 21-20 and limited the Cougars to 16 baskets in 48 attempts for 33 percent. Catholic Central also hit only 6 of 23 three-point field goal tries. Freshman Michael Brown had 13 points and Joe Price, Mac Grzybek and freshman Hunter Marosi eight points each for the Cougars.

Isaak Newhouse had five assists and three steals for Grand Haven while Searle led in rebounds individually with four.

“We’ll find out Friday if we can score points,” said Hewitt. Grand Haven returns to O-K Conference Red Division action by playing at Rockford. Both teams are 0-2 in league play. Rockford also is 2-6 overall for the season.

The Buccaneers have a three-game week as Saturday, Jan. 25, they play a make-up non-league game at Reeths-Puffer against the Rockets. That varsity game is expected to start at 7 p.m.