The No. 2-ranked Brandywine girls basketball team is the prohibitive favorite to win the Class C district title this week at Eau Claire High School.

But the Bobcats, who are 19-1, aren’t overconfident heading into the state tournament.

Brandywine hasn’t forgotten what happened last year at districts. New Buffalo upset the previously unbeaten Bobcats, 51-42, in the district finals. That loss snapped Brandywine’s five-year streak of winning districts.

“I think it makes us hungry,” said Brandywine girls basketball coach Josh Hood about last year’s loss. “We all took a step back. It made us realize that we’re not invincible. It made us refocus as a program to do things different. We have more of a post game this year. We don’t rely as much on the 3-point shot.”

Hood and his team aren’t even thinking about having the opportunity to play at home at the regionals next week.

“People at Brandywine have been talking about hosting regionals,” Hood said. “That’s not been brought up by our girls. We’re taking it one game at a time.”

The next game for Brandywine will be against either Cassopolis (8-12) or Benton Harbor Dream Academy. Those two squads play each other at 7 p.m. in an opening round district game on Monday at Cassopolis High School.

The Bobcats beat Cassopolis, 47-20, during the regular season and didn’t play Dream Academy.

“Cassopolis is playing well of late,” Hood said. “They’re athletic and it’s tough to beat athletic teams.”

In all 20 of its games Brandywine has had the same starting lineup of Makenna Hartline (14.4 points per game, 8 rebounds a game, 3 steals a game), Michaela Hartline (8.7 ppg., 6 rpg., 3 spg.), Brooke Smith (9.8 ppg., 7.2 rpg., 3.7 spg.), Emily Erwin (9 ppg.) and Jaleesa Garner (7.1 ppg., 4 spg., 5 assists per game).

“It’s pretty solid to have five girls that are averaging seven to 14 points a game,” Hood said. “Our unselfishness is a weapon this year.

“I think we’re playing at a high level right now. In our last three games we beat teams by convincing scores with winning records (St. Joseph (13-7), Bronson (15-5) and White Pigeon (13-7).

“Our girls are pretty excited to get started.”

Cassopolis didn’t play the Benton Harbor Dream Academy during the regular season.

“I feel that we’re approaching the tournament in a good frame of mind,” said Rangers girls basketball coach Nat Pittman. “If our girls do the things our coaches ask them to do and stay focused we can hang with anybody.”

Cassopolis is led by Kortenei Suggs (8.8 ppg.), Brittney Prestly (8.1 ppg.) and Kaylynn Forrest (7.4 ppg.).

“We’ve had a problem scoring,” Pittman said. “We lost six to seven games that we could have won if we made layups and free throws.”

Cassopolis shot only 22-percent (8-of-37) from the field and was 2-for-10 from the free-throw line in its regular season meeting against Brandywine.

The Rangers trailed, 19-12, midway through the second quarter against the Bobcats.

“For two quarters we played well against Brandywine before succumbing against them,” Pittman said. “We’ve improved a lot since playing them.”

 

Class A at St. Joseph

The Niles girls basketball team faces one of the favorites in the opening round of the Class A District Basketball Tournament tonight.

Lakeshore (17-3) will face the Vikings for a third time this season and for the second time in four days.

Lakeshore, the SMAC West Division champion, scored a 59-37 decision against the Vikings (12-8) in the regular season finale for both teams.

“Lakeshore is one of the first class teams in our conference,” Niles coach Phil D’Amico said. “They play hard, together and always seem to get a total team effort. They are as disciplined and as balanced as any team we have played and very difficult to defend as they can beat you from the outside as well as they beat us the first time from the inside the, so they are very difficult to defend.

“They are extremely well coached, as I really respect coach (Sydney) Smallbone and they play hard from start to finish. I think the back-to back games can both help and hurt depending on the outcome.”

Niles is led by junior guard Elyse Zimmerman, who is averaging 15.3 points per game.