Mendon girls reach state quartefinals

MENDON — Mendon High School has had its share of winning over the years.

You can see it when you walk in the gymnasium with all the banners hanging from the rafters. Now, this year's girls hoops team will have a chance to add another banner to those rafters.

On Wednesday, the Lady Hornets hosted the regional finals and picked up a 47-43 gritty victory over Concord. It marks — what is believed to be — just the second time Mendon has reached the quarterfinals in girl's basketball. For as much winning as 'Little Ole Mendon,' as Glen Samson, athletic director likes to say, this group of girls is looking to leave their mark on school history.

"Normally, we come into our games smooth-sailing and all, but tonight we went right at them from the start," senior Makennah Mullin said following Wednesday's game. "We went at them the whole time, we were fully in it."

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The intensity during the game lasted from the jump. Concord, though, never led in the contest as Mendon scored the first handful of points in the game and only allowed the Yellow Jackets to tie the game briefly in the second half. The victory puts Mendon into the state quarterfinals coming up on Tuesday.

There, the Hornets will travel to Gobles High School and play Fowler in a battle of teams which are 23-3 on the season. The previous time Mendon had reached this point in the tournament came back in 2014, when co-coach Jenna Griffith was a senior.

"I'm more nervous as a coach than a player, it's a control thing," she said following Wednesday's win with a giant smile. "You can prepare them as much as you want, but they have to go out there and play."

Griffith said the hopes are for Mendon to go out on Tuesday and end with a better result than she had as a senior in the quarterfinals. That game saw Mendon fall to host Gobles 49-40.

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Mendon got a chance to see Concord knock Colon out of the regionals on Monday. The Hornets said coming into Wednesday's final, they knew the Yellow Jackets were going to bring a ton of pressure.

"We knew they were going to double team us with the ball, so I was looking for the next person on where that double team was coming from," sophomore point guard Jadyn Samson said. "I really wanted to space the court as much as possible and look for the open person and control the ball."

Concord made a late run and chopped Mendon's lead down to just a single possession late in the fourth quarter. But Mendon kept the composure and stepped up to make free throws when it needed to.

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Sophomore Cienna Nightingale was a big part of that, knocking down clutch shots from the foul line.

"Yeah, I was nervous," Nightingale said with a smile after pictures were taken with her teammates in celebrating the win. "I just knew I had to do it for my team. I was really focused on making those free throws."

Playing at home was certainly a benefit to the Hornets as well.

"I love playing at home, it's great," Samson said. "Obviously it was loud and our student section was a big part of that."

Between Nightingale and Samson, the Hornets made 9-of-14 free throws in the final quarter. Mendon was just 4-of-8 in the previous three quarters from the stripe and finished 13-of-22 from the line. Concord made just 4-of-8 attempts in the game.

Mendon and Concord were tied 10-10 after one and the Hornets led 20-16 at the break. Each team scored 10 points in the third quarter and 17 points in the fourth quarter. It was that type of close contest. Turnovers played a part in the game, including late, but the Hornets never let the game get away.

"It's tough to simulate that in practice, but sometimes we throw an extra guard in there so we're practicing against six players," Griffith said when looking for a good way to practice against pressure. "It's pretty incredible what our two sophomore ball handlers were able to do tonight. We told them there would be pressure and they were just gonna have to be able to handle it, and they did a great job at that."

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Mullin and Samson each scored 11 points to lead Mendon, Nightingale added 10 points. Brianna Heitkamp scored six points, Gracie Schultz put in five and Lila Schinker scored four. Concord was led by freshman guard Bradie Lehman with 14 points, Cieara Barrett tossed in 12 points.

Mullin grabbed eight rebounds with three blocks, Schultz totaled five rebounds and Schinker grabbed four. Samson also had four rebounds with four assists and two steals, Heitkamp joined the group with four rebounds as well. Nightingale finished with eight board, Brielle Bailey snagged two rebounds.

Concord ends the season at 20-6.

Mendon is looking forward to continuing its season.

"We knew this was a group that could do it," Nightingale said. "We wanted to push toward it and we came together tonight and got it done."

Mullin said she's happy to continue her athletic career.

"It's pretty awesome," she said with a big smile following.

Contact Sports Editor Brandon Watson at watson@gannett.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as twitter, @BwatsonSJ.

This article originally appeared on Sturgis Journal: Mendon girls reach quarterfinals for second time in school history