Schoolcraft (18-1) and Covenant Christian (15-6) will square off Tuesday night in a division three state quarterfinal at Loy Norrix High School.
The Eagles and Chargers met back on February 27th with Schoolcraft earning a 60-55 win.
Covenant Christian has shown steady improvement this season with a young squad, starting four juniors and a sophomore.
"We have had to learn on the fly," Chargers head coach Tyle Schimmel said." There were some games early in the year where maybe we didn't play as well as we expected but we've gotten a lot of different contributions from quite a few guys and it has come on different nights and it has been a lot of guys buying into their role. I think early on in the year we were trying to figure out our rotations and now that we have them figured out I think the guys are starting to settle in."
While every team is thankful for the opportunity to play this season, Schoolcraft has really embraced it after being undefeated (21-0) when the tournament was canceled last year.
"I think just the opportunity to be able to play the tournament, even though there is limited fans in the stands, is really important for the kids," Eagles head coach Randy Small said. "But it is always in the back of your mind knowing that maybe this would be the last day and now we are into our last week hopefully regardless of what happens to us everybody gets to continue on through the weekend."
The first meeting between the teams saw Covenant Christian rally to tie the game in the fourth quarter and Schoolcraft make plays down the stretch to pull out the win.
This division three quarterfinal is expected to be another close game.
"With Schoolcraft, they are so well coached, they are so big, so physical they cause so many different matchup problems for us," Schimmel said. "It is going to be a battle and I know it is cliche to say this but if we can take care of the ball and if we can probably more so rebound that is going to be the biggest key for us."
"They play really hard," Small said of the Chargers. "They play very in your nose man-to-man defense, we've played a handful of teams including them with that style, Covenant, Pewamo-Westphalia, Benton Harbor, Lapeer. That makes it difficult, we have to do a good job of getting into our offense and being able to execute in the half court."
