By David Drew
Special to the Gazette
ST. JOSEPH — Shayne Whittington stood exhausted
next to the bench, a cup of water in his hand, the look
of a man who’d just worked a 16-hour day on his face.
Nearby, his Lawrence teammates were hugging and
celebrating their 83-69 Class D boys’ basketball
district championship win over Covert at Michigan
Lutheran High School. The 6-foot-9 junior center scored
a career-high 34 points and grabbed 11 rebounds against
a Bulldog team that had no answer for him Friday night.
Every one of Whittington’s 14 field goals were made
within five feet of the basket.
“We were just looking to penetrate and dish all night long,” Lawrence coach Mike Salvano said after his team improved to 20-1 on the season. “(Whittington) came through big time.”
Salvano will need him to come through again Monday when they play Tekonsha (18-5) at 7:30 p.m. in Otsego. Tekonsha is led by all-state candidate Dustin Orns, who this week reached 2,000 career points. It’ll be difficult for that game to be more intense than Friday night’s battle for a district title — even though Lawrence held a 10-point lead entering the fourth quarter. “It got pretty intense for both teams but the team with the cooler head prevailed, so it worked out,” Salvano said.
After scoring 10 of the Tigers’ first 12 points in the fourth quarter, Whittington was fouled hard by Covert’s Delaney Roseburgh and fell to the floor with 3:36 remaining. As Whittington began to get up, Covert’s Thomas Gray purposely stepped right over him. When Whittington finally reached his feet, the two locked eyes in a vicious frozen stare, before teammates sliced through the tension and pulled the two away. “It’s all in good fun,” Whittington said of the confrontation. “It’s basketball and it’s going to get competitive.”
Salvano said there was a little extra pressure on his giant center to carry the Tigers. “Coach said he needed a big game out of me and I think I did a good job of coming through,” he said. “I think I did a pretty good job of keeping my cool.”
Junior guard Lee Cammire said he’s proud of the way the Tigers played through the emotion. “We just try to play our game,” he said. “Coach taught us to play the way we do and we tried not to let (Covert) get to us.”
One sore spot for Lawrence was the free-throw shooting. The Tigers made just 15 of 32 shots from the stripe and Salvano said that is something that will have to be polished up by Monday.
Cammire still had enough energy left in him after the high-paced game to put things in perspective. “We’ll never forget this,” he said. “It’s the game of our lives. (Covert) can jump out of the gym and I think we did a pretty good job of containing them.”
Cammire said Covert simply had no answer for
Whittington. “He was the X-factor,” Cammire said
of his towering teammate. “He probably had the best game
of the season.”
Senior guard Adrian Ledesma dished
out eight assists for the Tigers and teammate Logan Rowe
gathered nine rebounds.
Covert coach Grant Gondrezick said Whittington scored 20 points on eight missed foul shots and, simply, there was no excuse for that.“I’ve never seen that,” he said. “We stepped straight in instead of boxing out. He moves well and he’s agile but even if we would’ve just gotten a foul for pushing back on him, I would’ve taken it.”