The Saint

Story by Marshal Acosta, Guest Writer

The Aquinas Men’s basketball team kicked off their season against Spring Arbor in what was a thrilling contest between two gritty teams. The Saints got off to a good start with Donovan Brown-Boyd hitting his first two shots of the 2023 season and Spring Arbor would soon counter in what led to a back-and-forth contest all afternoon. 

  The ball movement for Aquinas was very efficient and that started with their point guard Devon Boyd leading the way and creating opportunities for his teammates to score. It was a low-scoring game in the first six minutes as the game was tied 8-8 but both teams seemed to find their stride offensively leading to Spring Arbor scoring 20 points in the next 14 minutes of play and Aquinas scoring 17 as the game was 28-25 in favor of Spring Arbor at halftime. 

Both teams in the first half looked to get in sync as they started to figure out what was working for them offensively and for Spring Arbor that was going inside the paint and feeding their All-American center Gabe Newhoff. As a team, Spring Arbor shot 48% from the floor, which included 24 points that were scored in the paint in the first half compared to Aquinas’s 38.5% from the floor with half as many points at 12. Fouls were distributed 8-5 in favor of Aquinas with neither team reaching the double bonus. 

  In the second half, the Saints tied it right up with a Devon Boyd three-pointer to make it 28-28 in the first twelve seconds. Aquinas hit a little bit of a cold stretch offensively going scoreless for nearly 4 minutes before a De-Andre Francis layup would make it 30-29 in favor of Aquinas. 

Spring Arbor went on a cold stretch of their own not having made a field goal in nearly the first 5 minutes of the second half before a Trey Cottingham layup at the 15:47 mark would tie it up at 31-31. Aquinas and Spring Arbor would then exchange a free throw each knotting the game up once again at 32-32 before a Ty Rykse three-pointer would give Spring Arbor the lead 35-32. However, the Saints would respond with a three-pointer of their own tying it up once again at 35-35. 

It was a back-and-forth contest the entire second half with it coming down to the final seconds as a costly turnover by Aquinas’s DeAndre Francis would lead to the go-ahead game-winning jumper by Spring Arbor’s Trey Cottingham with 4 seconds left, eventually leading to Spring Arbor winning the game 55-53. Gabe Newhoff led Spring Arbor in scoring with 16 while Aquinas was led by Donovan Brown-Boyd and Jared Lary with 13 points a piece.