Officially, Flint St. Matthew High won its first state basketball championship on March 24, 1962, when it beat Brimley 60-52 in the Class D final at Michigan State’s Jenison Field House.
In reality, the Panthers wrapped up that title nearly three weeks earlier, when they scraped past Sacred Heart 60-59 in a battle of Flint Area Parochial Conference co-champions in the district opener at Kearsley High.
St. Matthew’s only loss in a 23-1 season was against Sacred Heart on Jan. 5, and the Matts — as they were more commonly called — nearly fell again to their toughest opponent of the season.
When they survived, the path to a state title was wide open.
“After we beat Sacred Heart, it was over,” said Roger Houle, a 6-foot-2 freshman on the varsity. “The tournament games were easy. We had no competition.
“The toughest competition we had was our league. The parochial league made us state champs.”
The numbers back up that claim.
After the nail-biter, St. Matthew beat Mt. Morris St. Mary 70-40, Genesee 75-58, Kinde North Huron 77-56, New Lothrop 66-51 and Potterville 71-51 to reach the final four.
The last two games were a bit closer, with a 59-52 win over Lawrence in the semifinals, and the eight-point triumph over Brimley in the title game. But even those games were never in doubt.
“They weren’t that close,” said Houle. “Everybody was getting in to play.”
Case in point: All 12 St. Matthew varsity players got in the championship game.
That dominating run through the 1962 tournament has earned St. Matthew a berth in the Greater Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame.
The state title was the culmination of four years of solid play by a nucleus of four key players, led by a young Jack Pratt in his first four years as a head coach.
John Biedenbach, Craig Metcalfe, Alex Peterson and Don Trevarrow carried St. Matthew to two league championships, two holiday tournament wins, four district titles, three regional crowns and the first state championship in any sport for the little school (enrollment 200) on Beach Street.
None of the Big Four stood taller than 5-11. Their strength was speed on the fast break, fueled by block-out rebounding drilled by Pratt, and the belief and desire to win instilled by him.
“We were trained on defense and on blocking out and getting rebounds,” said Peterson. “He’d throw the ball up in practice and say, ‘Block off the guy that’s going to the basket. I want that ball to hit the floor.’” Rebounding was the duty of the fifth man.
