Mendon reaches regional finals, Colon ends season
MENDON - The Mendon Hornets will play in the regional finals in a friendly place on Wednesday evening.
Mendon (22-3) is the host of the regional tournament again this year, but this time the ninth-ranked Hornets will be in the finals. On Monday, they took out St. Joseph Michigan Lutheran 46-19 in the regional semifinals.
"It's nice for us, to be able to host regionals. We do it a lot because we have nice facilities for a Division 4 school," Mendon coach Buzz Griffith said following Monday's game. "But it's been five years since we won a district, so we've been here, but we've been up in the stands watching other teams play."
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Mendon will take on Concord (20-5), which upset fourth-ranked Colon 39-36 in the first game on Monday night.
Colon coach Beth Preston said even though her team was unable to advance in the tournament, she is still proud of their accomplishments this season.
"They're probably one of the best teams that have come through Colon and I want them to be proud of that," Preston said of her club. "To win 22 games, that's a big deal. Unfortunately, we fell short of one of our main goals this year. Sometimes you don't play your best and that happened today."
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For Mendon, the Lady Hornets built a lead of 13-0 before Lutheran finally got on the board. They scored with 4:25 remaining in the second quarter as points were tough to come by early.
Mendon would lead 22-6 at halftime.
Griffith said his team will need to bring the effort on Wednesday.
"We need to be able to take care of the ball and be a little more sound than we were tonight," he said. "They're (Concord) good. They've got size and good ball-handling. We are gonna have to be on our game."
In Monday's game, Makennah Mullin led Mendon with 12 points and five rebounds. Brianna Heitkamp tossed in nine points with six rebounds and Cienna Nightingale added seven points with seven boards.
Jadyn Samson finished with six points, five rebounds, six assists and four steals. Brielle Bailey put in four points with four rebounds, two assists and two blocks and Gracie Schultz scored four points with two rebounds. Kayla Wenzel scored two points, Lila Schinker added two points with four rebounds and four assists while Jenna Scheffler hauled in four rebounds.
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Mendon will battle on the interior with Concord in the game on Wednesday.
"That size is good," Griffith said. "We're gonna have to really look at fronting the post and minimizing their points there."
Colon got not get anything going offensively on Monday.
The Lady Magi came into the game scoring better than 58 points per contest. The 36 points scored was the fewest by Colon in a game all season.
"We couldn't get anything going offensively and we really didn't run an offense in that first half, we were scattered," Preston said. "Their pressure got to us. It's hard to simulate that in practice and we did not play with enough intensity. Unfortunately, we dug ourselves a little too big of a hole tonight."
Concord built a 15-9 lead after one quarter of action. In the second, Colon put in just three points and trailed 24-12 entering the locker rooms for halftime.
The offense got a little better in the second half for the Lady Magi. They scored a dozen in each of the final two quarters, but Concord did just enough with 15 points in the final two stanzas.
Reese Williams led Colon with 15 points and seven rebounds. Macey Burgess scored 11 points while both Megann Mullins and Allison Vinson each put in four points. Raegan Thaxton scored two.
"They were aggressive and physical and we didn't respond to that," Preston said. "They did a good job of keeping the ball out of Reese's hands and that was their goal. They accomplished that for the most part."
Colon ends the season with a record of 22-3. The Lady Magi won back-to-back district titles.
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 will play in regional finals on Wednesday
