It was a festive Parents’ Night basketball game Thursday evening to mark the end of an 18-1 regular season for Wayland and to send best wishes for its perilous district tournament opener Monday.
The Wildcat boys did not disappoint the home crowd at all, cruising to a surprisingly easy 84-51 victory over visiting Holland, a team that entered the game with an overall record of 11-8.
Coach Mike Hudson, in the spirit of the evening, started all of his seniors and let them play for a little more than a minute before he unleashed his top guns. The Wildcats fell behind 6-0 on a pair of threes from Dutch junior guard 
Demetrius Lake and they were down 9-5 about five minutes into the ballgame when they erupted.
Wayland scored 17 unanswered points, many of them off a tenacious full-court trapping defense that Holland unsuccessfully tried to dribble though.
Junior guard Avery Hudson started the run with a three-point goal, followed by consecutive layup baskets by Mitchell Dykstra, Michael Kelly and then Hudson off a steal. Zack Nieuwkoop, 6-7 center, then scored inside and swished a pair of free throws to hand the home team an 18-9 advantage at the first period buzzer.
It was Nieuwkoop to Kelly and then Kelly to Nieuwkoop in finding the open man under the bucket, so Wayland enjoyed a 22-9 lead just a minute into the second quarter. The gap widened to more than 20 points, but the Dutch were able to make it more respectable, 38-21, at intermission.
By the time the lads from both squads had gone to the locker room, Hudson had scored a whopping 18 points on driving layups, runners and threes, Nieuwkoop had 11 and Kelly 7. That added up to 36 of the 38 points on the home team’s side of the scoreboard.
The game got progressively worse for Holland in the second half, as the Wildcats gradually pulled away by even wider margins, leading 61-38 at the end of three periods.
With six minutes to go, coach Hudson gave the hook to son Avery and Nieuwkoop, who finished with 26 and 25 points, respectively. Kelly finished with 11 points and junior guard Depree Holloway took advantage of the extra playing time by dropping in eight points, all in the fourth quarter.
Coach Hudson had completely emptied his bench five the five-minute mark in the last period.
Lake scored 23 points to led the Dutch and junior forward Gabe DeJongh added 11.
The 2015-16 regular basketball seas0n has been Wayland’s best since it went 20-0 in 2010.
Many fans believed this was a nice tuneup for the Class B district showdown Monday night at South Christian against Wyoming Godwin Heights. The Wolverines are ranked No. 2 in the latest Class B state-wide poll of the Associated Press. The Wildcats are No. 5, though 18-1 and falsely listed as 17-2.
Perhaps Monday night’s war will decide. In order to make a statement about the quality of Wayland basketball, the victories will have to come early and often.
PHOTO: Avery Hudson Zack Nieuwkoop (Photos courtesy of Kenny Ritz)
