Brandywine hoops teams sweep Dowagiac

Published 9:29 am Saturday, December 14, 2024

By Max Harden

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NILES TOWNSHIP — The Brandywine girls and boys basketball teams took care of business against visiting Dowagiac Friday night.

The girls won 61-26 and the boys won 69-52.

Adeline and Lily Gill led a balanced Bobcat scoring attack with 13 and 12 points respectively and Karleigh Byrd had 11 points while Lexi Troup and Miley Young scored nine points apiece. 

The Brandywine girls led 41-10 at halftime and by as many as 46 during the game, using their depth and experience to their advantage.

“We had a bit of a sluggish start,” said Brandywine coach Josh Hood. Overall, we’re playing really good defense, they’re playing hard. When you can sub five in, five out and keep enthusiasm and defensive pressure, that says a lot about the depth of our program. The girls have worked really hard, practiced really hard so I’m really proud of our start.”

Marlie Carpenter led Dowagiac with 10 points and Evie Loch added six.

Brandywine is a great team,” said Dowagiac coach Craig Schau. “Josh is a great coach. After the game I told our girls that I’m super proud of them for not giving up and continuing to fight. That’s a really, really good Brandywine team so all we can do is control our effort and they played hard.”

The Bobcats are 4-0 to start the season and have their sights set on returning to the Breslin Center for the opportunity to hoist a Division 3 state championship after finishing as runner-up last year.

“I think the main focus right now is staying hungry,” Hood said. It’s not about who we’re playing right now, it’s about what’s on our jersey and what it means when you take the court. You hold yourself to the standard of excellence and I think for the most part we’ve done that. These girls don’t need a lot of motivation, they were three free throws away from the ultimate prize last. Yer so there’s not a lot of motivation you need with this group. They’re relentless in their pursuit of greatness and that makes my job as a coach really easy.”

Schau and his young Chieftains squad aim to improve as a group one game at a time.

Our vision is to be a really good basketball team but we’re focused on what we control,” Schau said. “We focus on continuous development… We’re super young right now – we have one senior, one returning starter and two returning varsity players so we are just focusing on getting better every single day and gelling as a team. We’ve had four weeks together so far and I think we have huge upside. They have to just continue to put the work in and get better every day.”

On the boys side, the Bobcats (3-2) led 41-19 at halftime and outscored the Chieftains 23-14 in the third quarter to put the game away. Brandywine’s Nylen Goins led all scorers with 21 points – 12 coming in the first quarter – and Ryder Richard tallied 15 points while Emerson Gogley and Will Hubbard scored 12 and 11 respectively.

For Dowagiac (0-5), Lamone Moore Jr. led the Chieftains with 16 points and Isaiah Fitchett added 14.

Remembering Scott Novak 

Friday’s games were dedicated in memory of longtime Leader Publications Sports Editor Scott Novak, who covered the Leaderpub sports scene for 42 years before passing away in October. The seat Novak often used to cover Brandywine games was reserved in his honor.

“Scott was more than just a sports reporter,” Hood said. He really cared about Southwest Michigan, getting to know kids and just being a big fan of everybody. It was more fun for Scott talking to you before the game and shooting the breeze a little bit, having a great conversation. Scott was a Dowagiac guy at heart but he was a fan of all teams in our area. He’s a local icon that’s missed greatly. We miss seeing him in the chair but that’s just a small thing that our school can do to remember Scott today.”

Schau, who graduated from Dowagiac in 2001, remembers Novak covering his games as a Chieftain basketball player.

“My wife and I moved away for quite some time and then when we got back here in 2020 it was awesome to see him still safe on the sideline reporting and we caught up a few times,” he said. “I love Scott, he meant so much to this entire area for just his presence and reporting and he always had a smile. I love that Brandywine did that; That’s awesome.”

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