MONTAGUE — Despite hot and humid conditions that practically turned Montague’s gyms into sweatboxes, all parties involved seemed pleased with how the Wildcats’ first 3X3 basketball tournament went Saturday. Games were played at both the NBC Middle School and Montague High School facilities.
“At the middle school, we had four fans going and it was cooler outside than it was in the gym,” Montague boys basketball coach Nick Thaler, who ran the event, said. “We had to give more time in between games to give the kids more time to relax and get water. All in all, it went as good as it could possibly go. We had no major issues.”
One of the happy groups when the final whistles blew was a team of four area girls players, who took their age group’s title. Montague Wildcats Addison Pranger, Avah VanderMeulen and Adilynn Peterson joined up with Whitehall’s Clare Westerlund to win their group. The quartet defeated a squad of Mona Shores players and two teams of North Muskegon players to take the win.
Pranger said she and her Wildcat teammates had trouble finding a fourth player, which was important to give players a rest in the hot conditions. Since Westerlund is a friend of hers, she invited her to play and the rising sophomore Viking was happy to join up.
“It was really nice to do some activity after being a little lazy this summer,” Pranger said with a laugh. “3v3 was especially fun with all the space we have on the court. You’ve got to help create. You can’t just hope for somebody to be open. You have to work for it. It’s a big teamwork game.”
The games resembled pickup games one might play in the park; defensive rebounds had to be followed by taking the ball back out to the three-point line to reset the possession, and while there were officials there to call fouls and rule on out of bounds situations, they appeared to let more contact go than one might see whistled in a typical 5-on-5 game - on boys basketball coach Nick Thaler’s instructions, he said.
“When you play in those FIBA events, they do let more go,” Thaler said, referring to the sport’s international governing body. “It’s a more physical style of play. It flows better. It makes a kid better, because you learn to play through that stuff, then in high school ball they tend to call them a little bit tighter. It helps kids in the long run.”
Some younger age groups had coaches, but the high school age players ran the games on their own.
“It was really nice to get back in the gym and get some basketball going,” Pranger said. “I think we’ve all been really anticipating the season, and especially during summer, getting up and getting active to prepare for our senior year and for basketball this season. It was a blast.”
The tournament featured 32 total teams and raised money for No More Sidelines, which provides sports opportunities for those with special needs. Thaler said the organization will receive about $1,000 from the tournament.
Each age group had three trophies given out, one for the first-place winner, one for second place and a third for the ‘Toilet Bowl’ winners - the team that loses their first two games but finishes with a win. The Toilet Bowl part was inspired by the Gus Macker event, which distributes an identical honor. Thaler joked that the Gus Macker must have a trademark on the idea, though, because he was unable to find a white Toilet Bowl trophy.
Future editions of the tournament, Thaler said, should be even better. With a year’s experience to work off of and the new Montague gymnasium that will be completed by then offering more flexibility in terms of accommodations for younger players and additional courts, the sky will be the limit.
“From talking from the volunteers and the officials and getting feedback from the coaches, they thought it went really well,” Thaler said. “The kids had a lot of fun. The schedule was on a good pace for an event like that. Sometimes you can do a Gus Macker and be 40 minutes or an hour behind.”
The coach was happy to see Peterson, Pranger and VanderMeulen get together with a rival to help win as well.
“When you have good athletes in the White Lake area, it’s good to come together and do something or the community,” Thaler said. “Hopefully we get other players from the White Lake area in the future...We have a good group of people at Montague that helped put all this together. They donated their time and I’m thankful for that.”
