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East Lansing — Detroit University Prep made sure to play a quality schedule this season in order to see many opponents that play different styles en route to its first ever state semifinal appearance.
Unfortunately for University Prep, once at Breslin Center, Hudsonville Unity Christian proved to be a unique matchup it couldn’t figure out.
Tall, lengthy and efficient on both ends of the court, Unity Christian ended a historic season for University Prep in a Division 2 semifinal on Friday, prevailing 59-44.
“They were better than I thought,” University Prep coach Brandon Barrett said of Unity Christian. “They’re huge. They’re a very big team. They were very aggressive. I thought that they moved well for them to have that much size.”
University Prep couldn’t turn over Unity Christian with full-court pressure, and when Unity Christian got into halfcourt sets, it was pick your poison for the University Prep defense.
Unity Christian featured a twin tower duo in 6-foot-6 senior Owen VanderWaal and 6-8 senior Luke Tubergen, who dominated a smaller University Prep frontline.
Whenever the defense collapsed, those two kicked the ball out to a bevy of shooters on the outside who drained 3-pointers.
Not helping matters for University Prep was that it went 5 of 16 from the free-throw line.
Unity Christian (24-4) got off to a fast start, taking a 14-5 lead after the first quarter before outscoring University Prep in the second quarter, 20-6, to take a commanding 34-11 lead at halftime.
In the first half, Unity Christian shot 48.1% from the field and held 21-11 rebounding advantage. On the other side, Unity Christian went just 4 of 23 from the field in the first half in digging itself a major hole.
“That’s probably as good of a job defensively as we could do,” Unity Christian coach Scott Soodsma said. “There didn’t seem to be many holes out there. It was one shot and done and then we could push the ball.”
University Prep didn’t get into any flow offensively until the last half of the third quarter, when it scored 17 points over the final 3:36 of the third. Still, Unity Christian led 55-32 going into the fourth.
University Prep did manage to pull within 57-42 with 4:35 left, taking advantage of Unity Christian having a lot of its reserves in the game.
At that point, Soodsma had enough and sent his starters back in to finish the game off.
Unity Christian will play Freeland in the state championship game at 6:45 p.m. Saturday. It will be a rematch of a game played between the teams on Feb. 7, won 65-60 by Freeland.
VanderWaal had 12 points and nine rebounds and Tubergen added 12 points for Unity Christian.
For University Prep, it will hope to learn from the loss and build on the foundation set this year going forward.
“We’ve been knocking on the door,” Barrett said. “This is not a fluke, U Prep is definitely here to stay. We’ll continue to play tough competition. The standard has been set at U Prep.”
Keith Dunlap is a freelance writer.
Division 2
FRIDAY’S SEMIFINALS
Freeland 57, Romulus Summit Academy North 47
Hudsonville Unity Christian 59, Detroit University Prep 44
SATURDAY’S FINAL
Freeland (25-3) vs Hudsonville Unity Christian (25-3), 6:45 p.m.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: ‘Aggressive’ Unity Christian too much for Detroit University Prep in Division 2
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