2012 Regional Champs

The Tigers finished off their fifth consecutive regional title with a victory over the team that ended their 69 game NCCAA II winning streak in January, the current #1 ranked Kuyper Cougars.  The win came in like fashion to Thursday’s win over Lincoln Christian and Friday’s win over Maranatha with stifling defense, dominant rebounding, and unselfish offense.  Grace never trailed the Cougars, as they led by 13 at the half (37-24), stretched the lead to as much as 19 late in the game (57-38), and coasted to the nine point win as Coach Bailey gave finishing minutes to his bench.

Matt Kurtz (Lowell) led the Tigers with 22 points, Ryan Krombeen (Calvin Christian) scored 16, and John Oostema (Grand Rapids Christian) had 10.  Cory Jamieson (Wayland) provided his usual stellar leadership at the point and led the team with 5 assists.  Krombeen played outstanding defense in the post and led both teams with 10 rebounds as the Tigers held a 33-25 advantage on the boards .  “This is one of the best defensive games we have played all year,” said Assistant Coach Dan George. “The guys again did exactly what we asked of them.”

Coach Bailey was more than pleased with the play in this tournament. “We feel like we are going into the national tournament playing our best basketball,” said Bailey.  “The nice thing is that I think we can still be better.”

The Tigers have now beaten all of the top ranked teams in the country that they have played – Kuyper, Valley Forge Christian (twice), Ohio Christian University, Florida Christian College, Clearwater Christian College.  It is likely all of those teams will make an appearance at the national tournament.

The Tigers will find out on Sunday what the seedings for the national tournament will be and they will be published here as soon as they are released.

The Tigers reached the Midwest Regional Finals for the seventh consecutive year downing Maranatha Baptist Bible College 77-61  in Dunbar, Wisconsin Friday night.  “The guys were pretty close to perfect in executing the game plan tonight,” said Coach Gary Bailey.  “We are back to playing Grace basketball.”

The Tigers again mixed a balanced and patient scoring attack with excellent rebounding and good defense.  Grace shot a blistering 69.6% from the field (32/46) including 71.4% from the 3 point arc.  GBC held a 24-11 rebounding advantage holding MBBC to only 2 offensive rebounds.

The Tigers were led by Zach Schutte’s 23 points and Cory Jamieson’s 19.  Ryan Krombeen also scored in double figures with 13.  Matt Kurtz led Grace in rebounding with 6.

The Tigers will take on Kuyper College for the NCCAA midwest Regional crown tomorrow (Saturday) at 3:00pm CST.  The game will be webcast through Northland International University at http://www.webcast50.com.prod.ngin.com/page/show/449231-northland-international-university-niu-…..click watch live event.

Carl Getty

The Tigers were on their game on Thursday afternoon in first round action at the Midwest Regional Tournament, downing Lincoln Christian University by an 86-63 score, and Coach Gary Bailey was a happy man, not just because the Tigers won but because his team executed the things they had worked on in practice.  “It’s a lot of fun when everyone on the team gets to contribute in a win.  I couldn’t be more pleased.”

David Steenstra

All eighteen Tigers played in the game and all eighteen contributed in some fashion to the win.  “I was especially proud of some of our seniors who have worked hard for four years,” said Bailey, “but have played a limited role as far as playing time in most games.  When they were called upon tonight, they did just what we asked of them.”  Seniors Carl Getty (Wayland), David Steenstra (Grant Home School), and Matt Kurtz (Lowell) led the Tiger assault in rebounding with 6 boards each as Grace dominated the Red Lions 49-17 in rebounding.  The team also continued its excellent free throw shooting over the last few games with a 14/17 (82.4%) performance led by Cory Jamieson (Wayland) with 4/4.  Captain Ryan Krombeen (Calvin Christian) dished out 9 of the 20 Tiger assists.  The Tigers held the Red Lions to 20/55 (36.4%) shooting for the game while scoring on 32 of 67 attempts (47.8%) themselves.  No Tiger played more than 21 minutes but four of them still finished in double figures in scoring led by John Oostema (Grand Rapids Christian) with 15, Kurtz with 14, Krombeen with 13, and Zach Schutte (Calvin Christian) with 10.

The win marked the 20th of the season and the 7th consective season of 20 or more wins for Head Coach Gary Bailey and Assistant Coach Dan George.

The Tigers will play at 6 PM CST on Friday night against Maranatha Baptist.  The other semifinal will be played at 8 PM and features Kuyper College vs. Moody Bible Institute.

All games in the NCCAA Midwest Regional Tournament will be webcast by Northland International University.  The first round tournament games are listed below with the link to the webcast.

GO TIGERS!

Chicago, IL – The Tigers day didn’t start off well on Saturday and went down hill from there.  The Tigers dropped a 71-62 decision to Moody to close out the regular season and end up at 19-10 overall. 

The Tigers had bus problems to start the day and arrived at the gym just in time to get dressed and begin warm-ups.  “It wasn’t the way we wanted the day to go,” said Coach Gary Bailey.  “We were set to stop and have a nice lunch and arrive at the gym in plenty of time to have some shoot around time before the game.  Instead, we skipped lunch and had to drive from Green Bay, WI to Chicago, walk in and play.  It was extra difficult playing an overtime game at Northland the night before and then driving almost four hours back to the hotel in a snowstorm.  The players didn’t get much sleep and then all of this.  When we get to Moody, we walk into a buzz-saw.  They are a very good team.  At this point in the year we can’t use excuses.  We have to be better than this.”

The Tigers were led by Matt Kurtz’s 14 points.  Ryan Krombeen and John Oostema also scored double figures with 12.  Kurtz also led Grace with 7 boards.  Cory Jamieson dished out a game high 6 assists.

The game was close throughout with Grace leading by 7 late in the second half.  Moody’s Steve Harrison made a long three as the shot clock expired that started an Archer’s run.  Moody took a 3 point lead late and the Tigers were forced to foul.  After two trips came up empty for Grace and the Archers continued to make foul shots the Tigers fell by 9.

“When we lost to Kuyper a few weeks ago, the guys were upset more about the loss of the winning streak rather than the loss,” said Bailey.  The second loss to Kuyper made us realize that we have to get better and we had two great weeks of practice and beat three very good teams.  Tonight, the loss was difficult because of the day we had and Moody is a tough place to play.  But the guys seemed angry after the game about how we have been going about our business on the court.  As coaches, we haven’t seen that since the first half of the season.  Hopefully it has arrived just in time for the Tournament.”

Matt Kurtz scores 1,000th point in Tiger's win

The Tigers were the last ones standing after 45 minutes of offensive superlatives in snowy Dunbar, Wisconsin Friday night. “It was like two heavyweights standing toe to toe trading roundhouse punches,” said Grace assistant coach Dan George. “The fans had a great game to watch.”

The Tigers started strong out of the gate with senior captain Matt Kurtz (Lowell) hitting a three point shot for the first score of the game to join the Tiger 1000 Point Club for his career.  Grace followed that with two Kurtz free throws and three Zach Schutte (Calvin Christian) three pointers and they soon had a double digit lead that ballooned to 17 points.  Kurtz added two more 3′s and senior John Oostema (Grand Rapids Christian) hit 2 from behind the arc as the Tigers were a blistering 57% on 8/14 shooting on three pointers in the first half.  But the Pioneers came roaring back led by point guard Zach Mercado’s three scores from behind the arc and inside scoring from freshman Kyler Gardner and NIU had trimmed the Tiger lead to 49-41 at the half.

The Pioneers came out strong in the second half and took the lead on almost incredible shooting by Mercado. “In all my years of playing and coaching I have never seen anything like that,” said Tiger head coach Gary Bailey.  “It’s not that we were playing bad defense.  We had a hand in his face almost every time but he was in a zone.” Mercado finished with 41 points on 13/20 from the field including 9/12 on three pointers, including several from 25 feet or more. NIU barely missed a shot from 70 feet at the buzzer that would have won the game in regulation.

Senior Ryan Krombeen came up big in OT with a three point play and he, Oostema, and Kurtz all hit clutch free throws down the stretch as the Tigers finished strong.  Five Tigers scored in double figures led by Zach Schutte with 24, Kurtz with 21, Oostema with 18, Krombeen with 16, and Cory Jamieson (Wayland) with 11.  Krombeen led the Tigers with 12 rebounds.  Jamieson and junior Ryan Dame (Wayland) each added 9 boards and Schutte had 8. Jamieson had 8 assists and Krombeen had 7.  Dame had 3 blocked shots. The Tigers won the rebounding battle 48-34 and shot 49.3% from the field to the Pioneers’ 45.6%.

Grace moves to 19-9 and the Tigers go after win #20 on the season tomorrow afternoon in Chicago against Moody Bible Institute at 3 PM CST.

The game between Grace Bible College and Northland International University will be available to watch by clicking the link below and hitting the “View Live Event”.

http://www.webcast50.com.prod.ngin.com/page/show/449232-watch-past-events

The game begins at 7:30pm CST.

Seniors Kurtz & Jamieson bring out the bikes

The Tigers were able to continue their focus on community service as well as preparing for the NCCAA Regionals which begin in two weeks before their game against Andrews University.

“We really enjoy the opportunities that basketball gives us at Grace,” said Coach Gary Bailey.  “Our Tiger Wishes program allows us to either raise some funds to use in the community or be able to do some physical work to help the community.”

On this particular night, the Tiger coaching staff and every player contributed money to help out a couple of local kids.  “It was really fun to see their excitement,” said Bailey.  “I think they were a little surprised and nervous when we presented them the bikes but after the game you could see they were very, very happy.

Coach George presents the bicycles to the kids and their Pastor.

“We were outsmarted, outplayed, and out-hustled,” said Coach Gary Bailey in summation of a disappointing evening for seven seniors playing their last home game.  The Cougars once again had the Tigers number in the second half after trailing Grace 29-26 at the break.

“It’s frustrating, no question,” said Bailey, “but I’m confident our players and coaches will get things figured out by tournament time.”  And that time is fast approaching with the NCCAA II Midwest Regional beginning in two weeks.  Kuyper has locked up the #1 seed in the regional and will stand a good chance of moving to the #1 spot in the national rankings after downing the #1 Tigers for the second time this season.

Zach Schutte led the Tiger scoring in defeat with 17 points but the player of the game for the Tigers had to be junior Greg Salmon.  Coming off the bench, the former Wayland High grad had 9 rebounds in 16 minutes of play including 5 on the offensive end.  “We need his effort out of everyone if we make a substantial tournament run,” said Bailey.

The Tigers have ten days off before traveling to Dunbar, Wisconsin and Chicago to take on regional foes Northland International University and Moody Bible Institute.  It will be time spent getting healthy, in more ways than one.

Ryan Krombeen

The Tigers played 17 players and used a total team defensive effort to shut down Indiana University Northwest (NAIA II) 67-50.  The game was played at Calvin Christian High School just across town to honor two current Tigers that played at Calvin Christian, Ryan Krombeen and Zach Schutte.  All of the money taken in at the gate and concessions were donated to the schools athletic fund. 

Zach Schutte

Cory Jamieson

Cory Jamieson led Grace with 13 points, 11 rebounds and 6 assists.  Five other players scored either 8 or 9 points.

The Tigers held a 51 to 30 rebound advantage over the Redhawks.  The Tigers handed out 20 assists compared to 8 for IUNW.  GBC was 4 for 6 from the free throw line.

“I was pretty happy with our play today,” said Coach Gary Bailey.  I would have liked to shot the ball a little better but our defense looked really good at times.  We really wanted to hold them under 50 so that last three they hit at the buzzer put us over our goal.”

The Tigers now stand at 18-8 and will play Kuyper College at Grace on Tuesday night at 7:00pm.