Local Sports Journal
The Fruitport Trojans nearly surprised west Michigan in its opening Class B boys district basketball contest against Coopersville as the Trojans nearly upset the Broncos 44-43.
Fruitport held a lead late, but couldn’t hold on as Coopersville stormed back with 17 fourth-quarter points.
“It burns but we played them tough the first time and I knew we could stick with them,” said first-year Fruitport coach Adam Anspach. “We had eight seniors on the team so this stings more for then than the rest. This was my first season here at Fruitport and theses kids gave what they had and were willing to work for it all season.”
The Trojans led through a lot of the game, mainly off a 24-16 halftime lead.
Coopersville started to turn around the game in the fourth quarter after it put on a full court press, but Fruitport was still able to respond.
“They went into their diamond press and got a couple of buckets off of it,” said Anspach. “But Kriger and Flores kept Fruitport up with a couple points here and there.”
In the end it was Coopersville’s Joseph Dekkenga who put the Broncos over the top. Dekkenga finished with 17 points.
Fruitport was hurt by turnovers in the contest with 22, but made up for those mistakes on the glass with 35 rebounds.
Travis Grim led Fruitport with 12 points, seven rebounds and two assists and Luke Brown put in 10 points and had a pair of assists. Antonio Flores scored eight points and had six rebounds.
Nathan Kriger finished with six points, two assists and a steal while Zach Garber led Fruitport with eight rebounds and Shawn Knox pulled down seven.
“We were in a lot of games we shouldn’t have been in this year. I felt better tonight than I thought I would after this season,” said Anspach. “These kids put in some incredible effort these past months and have started something that will continue.”
