EAST LANSING — “I used to think in my room late at night what would it feel like to win a state championship,” said Riverview Gabriel Richard senior Luke Westerdale.
And now that his team has finally won one?
“This is better than I ever could have imagined,” he said, following the Pioneers’ 79-63 victory over Arts and Technology of Pontiac (ATAP). “Honestly, it’s the best feeling of my life. I can’t believe the group I get to do it with. These guys are my favorite people, and I’m so happy — this is so awesome.”
The Pioneers, who have won four out of the past five Catholic League Cardinal Division titles, looked like they might have been on their way to a state title in 2024, until a buzzer-beater by Detroit Old Redford knocked them out in the semi-final round.
While the team took that hard, coach Kris Daiek said it paid dividends by making the team more determined, focused and hard-working.
“Last year I remember saying, ‘I can’t believe this, I can’t believe this,’ in the locker room — not for a good reason — and this year I was saying it for the best reason,” Westerdale said. “It’s dead opposite on the spectrum; this is definitely one of the happier moments of my life.”
Coupled with Gabriel Richard’s trips to the state semifinals (in 2023) and finals (in 2024) which also came up just short, it hit home just how tough it could be to capture a state championship.
But the Pioneers were eager to finish the job March 15 at Michigan State University’s Breslin Center. Playing with a core group of five seniors — Nick Sobush, Charles Kage, Drew Everingham, Bryce White and Westerdale — for all but two minutes of the contest, Gabriel Richard opened the game by scoring on their first eight possessions of the second period to turn a tight contest into a 15-point lead, 30-15. Everingham ignited the team with a breakaway dunk and also hit a three-pointer during that stretch.
“When we get those momentum shifts, it gets our team going,” he said. “It’s a huge boost for our team when we stop them on defense and then we get a bucket on the next run. That’s what our team wants to do.”
Keeping up the attack in the third quarter, Gabriel Richard (25-2) led by as many as 23 points, 49-26, after Westerdale drained a three-pointer from the top of the arc five minutes into the second half.
ATAP (21-2) tried to slow the Pioneers in the final period by fouling them every time they had the ball in the last five-and-a-half minutes. But Gabriel Richard made 22 of 26 free throw attempts over that span, before Everingham closed out the scoring on the receiving end of an alley-oop.
Kage and Everingham each had 11 rebounds for the Pioneers, who outshot the Lions, 51 percent to 34 percent.
“I knew I had the size advantage over them, so I knew I had to take that and use it to my advantage,” said the 6-foot-8 Kage. “I just knew for the last game of my high school career I had to go out with a bang.”
Westerdale, for one, really appreciated the presence under the basket that Kage and Everingham brought to the attack.
“Before this year, we were real guard-heavy with me and Nick shooting a majority of the shots,” he said. “This year we really added that down-low post factor, and that’s what really put our team over the top.”
All five seniors at the heart of Gabriel Richard’s core scored in double figures. Kage and White had 18 apiece, Westerdale scored 17, Everingham had 16 and Sobush had 10.
“Unselfish basketball wins championships,” Westerdale said.
According to the players, this was a dream that was a long time in the making, but it was buoyed by the teammates’ ability to work together and each bring something to the court.
“Ever since we were freshmen, me and Luke have always dreamed about this moment, and of course Charles, too, and Drew came in along the way and then Bryce, but you know, I love these guys. These guys are definitely my brothers forever, and to end up on top, it’s amazing,” Sobush said. “All of us are going to do our own thing in college, so this is real special.”
“I’m ecstatic for these guys,” Daiek said. “It’s a great feeling not just to make history, but to make it with these guys.”
“This is the best group of guys I could have ever done it with,” Westerdale said. “We built this together. We all started as sophomores, a couple of us started as freshmen. We talked about this a while ago — state champions. We would watch the state championships every year and say, ‘That’s got to be us.’
“And today, it’s us.”
