Lauren 'Lolo' Reed - MHSAA Girls Basketball State Champion '18' & '19'

Laure ‘Lolo’ Reed is the daughter of Andre ‘Taco’ and Lisa Reed and the granddaughter of Glen and Damona Reed in Saginaw, MI.

GRAND RAPIDS — They weren’t the biggest and they certainly weren’t the quickest. But the Saginaw Heritage players became champions. Again.

Heritage captured its second consecutive state championship Saturday with a 55-40 victory over Southfield A&T in the Division 1 title game.

And just like they have in the past, the Hawks (25-2) did it as a team with everyone contributing something.

Once again, Moira Joiner was superb. The Michigan State signee scored 17 points, grabbed eight rebounds and passed for eight assists.

Shine Strickland-Gills, who signed with Central Michigan, was terrific inside with 16 points and eight rebounds and Keyonie Champion added 12 points.

Soleil Barnes led Southfield (24-2) with 14 points. Both Southfield losses this season came to Heritage.

After Barnes nailed a pair of 3-pointers to give Southfield an early 5-3 lead, Heritage counted with three straight buckets, highlighted by Joiner’s second 3-pointer for a 10-5 lead.

Barnes third triple of the quarter cut Heritage’s lead to 13-10 after one quarter.

Three-pointers by Joiner and LoLo Reed enabled the Hawks to take a 25-14 lead at intermission.

Heritage hit 10 of 24 shots (41.7 percent) over the first two quarters and committed five turnovers while Southfield was 6 of 21 (28.6 percent) with seven turnovers.

One of the keys to Heritage’s early lead was its ability to keep the taller Southfield players from dominating the backboards. It also helped the Hawks that 5-10 Alexis Johnson was in early foul trouble and spent a significant amount of time in the first half on the bench.

The pace quickened after halftime with Joiner and Barnes each hitting another try to ignite their offenses.

With Heritage shooting well from the perimeter it created spaced for Strickland-Gills and Keyonie Champion to do damage inside and helped the Hawks open a 17-point lead before Southfield cut it to 13, 40-27, after three quarters.

It took Heritage over three minutes to score in the fourth quarter, but Strickland-Gills converted a key three-point play to give the Hawks a 14-point lead.

Following a pair of free throws by Southfield’s Cheyenne McEvans, Strickland-Gills scored again off an inbounds pass by Joiner for as 46-33 lead with 3:30 left in the fourth quarter.

Mick McCabe is a former longtime columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at mick.mccabe11@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @mickmccabe1

*The following article was written and published on March 23rd. 2019 by the Detroit Free Press. Written by Mike McCabe.