HOLLAND - Davis Alderink has been coming to the Holland Civic Center since he was a little kid.
The Holland Christian senior would watch his two older brothers, Ethan and Will, play basketball, and he’s played here the past four years in the historic building.
On Friday night, it was Alderink’s final game on the Maroons home court.
“You start out playing with the Little Maroons, which is our youth camp,” Alderink recalled. “And you always dream of playing here. So it’s kinda weird to get to that point where we’re playing our last game. We were sitting in the locker room before the game and our dads and coaches were talking to us about how bitter sweet it is that this is the last game.”
Holland Christian beat rival Holland High School 54-43 on Friday night.
"Holland’s tough,” Holland Christian coach Brad Jansen said. “(Josiah) VanHekken is a dude and (Keegan) Hulst can shoot the lights out. They are disciplined on defense. I don’t think their record shows how good they are.”
Titus Spencer had a game-high 24 points for Holland Christian (10-2, 15-6). Jake Holcomb had 17 points and eight rebounds and Alderink had 3 points, 7 rebounds and 2 blocks. Hulst and VanHekken each had 14 points for the Dutch (4-8, 10-12).
The fourth quarter was close early on. The Maroons led by just three points, but they pulled away with a 7-0 run.
“We’re good at not getting too high or too low,” senior Jake Holcomb said. “We got back to our game in the fourth quarter. I think we can all agree that we could have played better. But it was fun.”
Holland’s second-year coach Andrew Meeuwsen was happy with how his team played on defense. Holland trailed 22-17 at halftime.
“I’m very happy with how we defend,” he said. “It was a slow start in the first quarter. They had, what, 22 points at the half? That’s awesome. The goal was to keep them under 50. So, for the most part, we are doing our job on defense. But we’ve got to make some shots.”
Holland Christian begins district play at Allegan. They have a bye and will play the winner of Allegan-Hopkins on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Holland High will play Zeeland West on Monday in the district opener at Grand Haven in a 7 p.m. game.
Holland senior is the engine that makes them go
Andrew Legg only scored four points on Friday. But the scoring isn’t the whole story for the scrappy Holland senior.
"Legg leads us in rebounds, steals, deflections,” Meeuwsen said. “He’s probably our best player when it comes to shooting percentage. He didn’t score much tonight because they had a big kid defending him. But he’s the reason why everything works for us. He does all the little things.”
Legg had seven rebounds and a steal.
Getting dad into the game
The pregame introductions were special for the Holland Christian seniors.
The house lights were turned off. The student section had glow lights and a spotlight was pointed at the team’s bench.
Each player got to do a fun handshake or whatever thing they could cook up with their fathers.
“It was everything to get them involved,” Alderink said. “I mean, my dad (Tim) played here, too. So it was fun to do that with him.”
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Holland Christian basketball beats rival Dutch at the Civic Center