ANN ARBOR – A fast start wasn’t enough for the Hartland boys basketball team to reach its first regional final since 2009.
The Eagles lost 41-33 to Canton in the Division 1 regional semifinals on Tuesday, March 3, at Ann Arbor Skyline.
Hartland raced to a 10-2 lead to start the game, but Canton calmly chipped away and kept the momentum.
While defensive intensity has been the trademark of the Hartland team, it has been mixed with the ability to down shots when they needed them.
Those shots did not fall against Canton.
“I liked the looks we got in the game overall,” Hartland coach Kevin Blouin said. “I think we were sped up a few times, but it wasn’t that horrible. We shot 3-for-17 from three. A lot of good looks, I think we executed that part of things well and we were 2-for-9 from the line in the second half – and it is tough to beat anybody, let alone a really good Canton team when you are just shooting a very low percentage.”
After the hot start, Hartland slowly started to let Canton creep back into it in the first quarter. With 3:41 left in the first quarter, the team that had lost their star in Parker Sundman nine game prior had a bit of a scare as Logan Morrish went down under the basket.
“He turned his ankle pretty bad but we got a couple of braces on it and he was able to finish fine.” Blouin said. “I thought the effort was there, I thought we battled, I thought we executed well enough, we just couldn’t really finish as well as we would like tonight.”
In the third, Canton’s aggressive style began to win out.
“They played full court man to man when we played them at their place for the league and it was about the same style of game, we just made a lot more shots in that other game,” Bloudin said. “We like it (the physicality) I think getting the ball up the court in the first quarter was the most stressed out with it the whole game. Our guys like physical play. Canton did a great job playing physical we gave up too many offensive rebounds definitely in the first half their physicality worked for them that way overall I think we were fine with it.”
In terms of moving on to the 2026 – 2027 season Blouin definitely feels confident.
“The program is strong right now. The culture is really good and that is all about the seniors more than anything coaches did,” he said. “Having Parker (Sundman) go down, I think a lot of people thought these guys might fold but we rattled off a bunch of wins and won the league and won a district and competed for a regional we got some great kids coming back and some young guys coming up from the JV team that can play so we are really excited about the future.”
This article originally appeared on Livingston Daily: Hartland boys basketball starts strong but can’t keep momentum in regional loss to Canton
Reporting by Timothy Arrick, For the Livingston Daily / Livingston Daily
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
