It wasn’t the start to the season anyone had seen coming for the Hamilton boys varsity basketball team. A 1-8 start to the season left both players and coaches searching for answers after a successful off-season filled with excitement.
“We were one and eight but we knew what we were capable of, we just couldn’t put it all together,” said senior Jeren Bronkhorst.
The Hawkeyes entered the 2025 calendar year with losses to Covenant Christian and Zeeland East before flipping the script on the season.
“After that loss to Zeeland East, we watched all of the film back and realized we can do a lot of things better,” senior Gabe Schrotenboer added.
The Hawkeyes would then knock off Zeeland West and Holland in the days to follow. Despite a 22-point loss to Unity Christian on January 17, the Hawkeyes rebounded and knocked off Holland Christian one week later. That win would propel the Hawkeyes to win seven of their next eight games, including avenging losses to the teams at the top of the conference, Zeeland East and Unity Christian.
The Unity Christian win was one very few people saw coming. A top-five ranked team in the state according to the MHSAA, the Crusaders entered with just one loss on the season. It's a program that has had incredible success in the postseason and one that had beaten Hamilton in its previous four matchups, dating back to 2023.
The game would go back-and-forth through the night, but regulation would come down to a Hawkeyes three-point lead with just seconds to go until Unity knocked down a deep buzzer-beater to send the game to overtime.
Just three minutes and fifty seconds of gametime later, the clock was winding down on a tied game in overtime when Scrotenboer drove the lane and found Bronkhorst for an easy lay-in with just four seconds left to put Hamilton in front.
“I saw Gabe got by his guy and my guy left to go help, so I was screaming at Gabe ‘pass me the ball!’” Bronkhorst chuckled, rewatching the moment.
Scrotenboer and the Hawkeyes would prevent a shot attempt on the ensuing Crusader possession, giving Hamilton the 65-63 win and ninth victory in eleven games.
“Unity Christian is the standard in our conference and they typically are,” Coach Kronemeyer said. “It takes everything to beat them, in fact it took 36 minutes of everything we had. It’s probably the hardest game our kids have ever played.”
The 1-8 record to begin the year is now just a forgotten memory for the much-improved Hawkeyes, who will now look to hang another district championship banner at the end of February.
“I kept telling them, ‘If you turn this around, nobody will remember how the season started, we just have to play our best basketball at the end of the season’” said Kronemeyer. “We’re a senior-led group, and I think they took that message to heart.”
Hamilton High School will play host to the MHSAA District 45 as the Hawkeyes get set to take on Wayland at 7:00 PM on Wednesday, February 26 at 7:00 PM in the semifinal.
