MASON — One of the mottos this season for the DeWitt girls basketball team has been ‘Don’t sleep on us.’
The Panthers have been determined all season to prove they could make some noise even with two 1,000-point scorers having graduated from the 2025 team that made a run to the state quarterfinals.
And DeWitt made a loud statement about its abilities on Tuesday, March 17.
The Panthers earned a trip to Breslin Center with a 48-41 upset victory over defending state champion Belleville in a Division 1 quarterfinal at Mason High School.
“It’s absolutely incredible,” DeWitt’s Jaynie English said. “I can’t even believe that we just pulled this off but I knew we could do it. We had a great mindset going into the game. We all just stuck as a team and we played together and we did what DeWitt knows how to do best.”
DeWitt (22-4) handed Belleville (25-2) just its third loss over its last 56 games since the start of the 2024-25 season while advancing to face Detroit Renaissance in a state semifinal at 2 p.m. Friday, March 20. The Panthers avenged last year’s state quarterfinal loss to Belleville while reaching the state semifinals for the first time since 2015.
“That team is loaded,” DeWitt coach Bill McCullen said of Belleville that features Miss Basketball finalist and Marquette signee Se’Crette Carter and one of the nation’s top prospects in the 2027 class in Sydney Savoury. “We had a lot of respect for what the challenge was tonight. Credit to our kids and credit to our coaching staff.
“Our assistants put a ton of time in breaking down film and just trying to give the girls a plan and some heads up on some of the things they like to run and their tendencies (We) were just trying to do our best to make it difficult for them to score because they are very talented. I thought we did that pretty well. (Holding them to) 41 points is pretty amazing.”
DeWitt trailed by 11 in the second half and faced a 35-28 deficit heading into the final quarter before mounting a strong finish. English and Golden Nicholson each made big plays in the final quarter to help send the Panthers to Breslin.
English had nine points in the fourth, which included a 3 that tied the game at 37 and then hit the go-ahead basket with 2:30 to play.
Nicholson had all five of her points in the final 1:05, hitting some key free throws and also grabbing some key rebounds.
“It was a good feeling because I tried as hard as I could to provide for my team,” Nicholson said.
Seniors Carly Dennis and Sophia Beland were also key throughout to help DeWitt continue its run. Dennis had six of her 12 points in the final quarter, while Beland had 11 points.
McCullen said it was rewarding to see his players have a moment like Tuesday as they celebrated with classmates, family and other supporters on the court..
“For this team, the biggest thing was for us to try to build that confidence knowing that we had graduated some really good players off of a team that broke 10 program records last year,” McCullen said. “These kids were part of that, some bigger roles than others, but they were all kind of around it and learned some things. I’m just so excited for them to now get that opportunity to go to East Lansing for finals weekend. It’s a great experience.”
Savoury finished with 23 points to lead Belleville.
Contact Brian Calloway at bcalloway@lsj.com. Follow him on X @brian_calloway and Bluesky @briancalloway.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: DeWitt girls basketball makes loud statement to reach state semifinals
Reporting by Brian Calloway, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
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