The Lady Reds dug deep and fought back from a large deficit to take the March 21 Division 1 state championship game 34-29 against Detroit Renaissance, held at the Breslin Center in East Lansing. Muskegon is the first Muskegon County girl’s basketball team to capture an MHSAA state title.
(Photo courtesy of LocalSportsJournal.com)
By Scott DeCamp
LocalSportsJournal.comEAST LANSING – Mariah Sain and her Muskegon girls basketball teammates dreamed of this moment for years.
The Lady Reds envisioned a state championship, even when others may have doubted them and despite any adversities they may have faced – and there were a lot of them. Chief among them included facing a big deficit against a tough opponent in the March 21 Division 1 state championship game.
The gutsy Muskegon squad needed to dig deep one more time and that’s exactly what the Lady Reds did in a hard-fought, 34-29 victory over Detroit Renaissance at the Breslin Center.
Sain has talked for weeks about leaving a legacy and making history, and that’s exactly what the senior guard and her teammates did. Muskegon (26-2) is the first Muskegon County girls basketball team to capture an MHSAA state title.
“This championship means everything,” Sain said. “We just made history… in becoming the first Muskegon girls team to win a state semifinal game but we really just left our legacy at Muskegon High School. A lot of our community was out from all areas of Muskegon, so it’s really a big moment for us and I’m truly blessed that I got to do it with my team and I’m just going to enjoy it.”
When it was Sain’s turn to receive her individual championship medal, father Maurice Sain, a Muskegon assistant coach, stopped her briefly and put an imaginary crown on the head of his youngest child – his princess.
“He’s always called me his little Pocahontas,” Mariah Sain said with a smile.
Added Maurice Sain: “That’s my baby and she will always be Miss Basketball to me.”
Now the Lady Reds are the queens of Muskegon, of the county, led by Miss Basketball runner-up Sain’s 14 points and eight rebounds, plus one monster block during a crucial juncture in the fourth quarter.
It was far from easy for Muskegon, especially against a hard-nosed Renaissance squad that came out with a purpose and made things extremely difficult on the Lady Reds out of the gate.
Muskegon trailed 7-0 just past the midway point of the first quarter and did not record its first point until Sain’s jumper with 2:23 left in the period. It got worse for the Lady Reds in the frame, as they trailed 12-2 following the first eight minutes. Their largest deficit was 15-2 with 7 1/2 minutes left in the opening half.
Muskegon surged in the second quarter, using a 10-0 run to pull within 15-12 on Sain’s banked-in 3-pointer with 1:51 remaining in the half. The Lady Reds went into the break trailing 17-12.
Renaissance (23-3) extended the lead to seven on Jaebri’an Autry’s jumper a little over a minute into the third quarter, but Muskegon continued to chip away. The Lady Reds crept within a point, 21-20, entering the decisive final quarter.
Muskegon’s Dy’Nasti Bell, a 6-foot-3 junior center, was working very hard on both ends of the floor and she received a well-deserved, albeit brief break for one minute of game time late in the third quarter. She re-entered and went back to work.
“I mean, we trained for this. There’s nothing out there on the court tonight that we haven’t been through, that we haven’t seen, and that we haven’t done, so I think that I just dug a little deeper,” Bell said. “You have to get more and just push through. I had to push through adversity and I toughened myself up and got back out there.”
Muskegon tied the game for the first time, 21-all, when Bell split a pair of free throws with 7:32 remaining, but Renaissance stretched the lead back to six in the next 2 ½ minutes. The Lady Reds trailed 27-21 with 4:58 left.
After taking yet another punch from Renaissance, Muskegon swung back on the strength of an 11-0 run spanning the next 4:40. That’s when the Lady Reds essentially won the game.
“It’s the state championship game, so I really had a championship mindset,” Muskegon senior point guard Cece Bonner said. “We wanted to be champions. We knew it was going to be highs and lows – you’ve got the crowd, you’ve got the refs, you’ve got the bench, the players. Not one time in the game did I think that we were out of it at all.”
Bell’s two clutch free throws with 1:56 left tied it at 27, then the 6-foot-3 force in the paint converted a layup with 59 seconds left to give Muskegon its first lead of the contest, 29-27.
Five combined free-throw makes by Sain and Bonner down the stretch put it away.
When a long heave by Renaissance at the buzzer was off the mark, it set off a wild celebration of Lady Reds players, coaches, and strong showing of fans, who were into the game throughout and provided much energy.
As Sain noted, the Lady Reds did not do this alone.
“My community means a lot to me. My parents didn’t just raise me – my whole community did. It takes a village to raise a kid, that’s true,” Sain said. “All the support and love that comes from our community (is important), especially the parents and the adults – they followed us through our highs and our lows from day one.
“It was big to celebrate that with my family. It was family that came back just for this moment. It was really big. I just wanted to give them the same love that they’ve given me.”
Bell finished with seven points, 11 rebounds, and three steals. Bonner had six points, two steals, and two rebounds. Senior Jaila Martin provided an enormous lift off the bench with her energy, plus she supplied tangible results with five points and seven rebounds.
Autry, one of only three seniors on Renaissance’s team, paced all scorers with 17 points, eight rebounds, and two steals. The 2026 Miss PSL (Detroit Public School League) award winner was dominant from the start and left it all on the floor.
“We’ve been doubted all year and this was the game to prove to everybody that we are capable,” Autry said through tears during the press conference. “I love these girls. This is the best team that I’ve ever been on at this school. I’m just proud of how far we came. That’s what I’m feeling.”
Muskegon coach Bernard Loudermill was feeling all sorts of emotion, but especially jubilation and extreme satisfaction.
This was his fourth year as the girls basketball helm. He was the Big Reds’ boys coach 2003-12.
Prior to the season, Loudermill created a group text for his team titled “Breslin Bound.” He joked that they may have to change the name of the group text to “MHSAA State Champions.”
“This is a surreal moment in regards to just dreaming it and it feels like a dream but I know that it’s not – it’s reality and the girls have worked hard all year,” Loudermill said.
“I’ve truly felt that this team had the ability to get to the Breslin and win as we did, but once again, thank God he’s given us the opportunity to come out and coach a great group of girls such as this. There has been a lot of
challenging times when they first came to the program, but one of the things we also labeled is that unity and perseverance will prevail at the end. That definitely happened.”
––––––––––––––––––––
Subscribe to the Legal News!
https://legalnews.com/Home/Subscription
Full access to public notices, articles, columns, archives, statistics, calendar and more
Day Pass Only $4.95!
One-County $80/year
Three-County & Full Pass also available
