Western Michigan Christian sprung a trap on the Buckley Bears Tuesday and moved to the semi-finals with an 80-51 win at Traverse City Central High School.

The Warriors, who have won back-to-back Class D state championships, will battle the Covert, 83-57 winners Tuesday over Camden-Frontier.

WMC used its quickness, size and pesky defense to run to a 17-12 first quarter lead. The state-ranked Warriors outscored the Bears 20-6 the second quarter to increase their lead to 37-18 at intermission and 60-35 at the end of three quarters.

Two Warrior all-staters, senior Evan Bruinsma and junior London Burris, put up 10 and 13 first-half points respectively to lead the Warriors.

"Everyone contributed and everyone played," a happy WMC coach Jim Goorman said. "It was a great team victory and we set the tone right from the start with our defense. We got a lot of fast-break buckets off our defense and we hit our inside shots."

"This place has really been good to us over the years. We have a great record here."

"They have a well-oiled machine and just keep replacing people year after year," Buckley coach Rene LaFraniere III said.

The Warriors move to 24-2 on the season and Tuesday's win was their 21st straight tournament victory. The Bears drop to 18-8.

London Burris led the Warriors with 26 points while Bruinsma added 18 points, 13 rebounds and four steals. Junior Omari Lewis slipped in 13 points, point guard Jeff Burris dished out 10 assists and Mario Harris had four steals.

The Bear's Josh Ledford, who has been averaging close to 20 points per game, was held to 11 points and teammate Jeff Dreves chipped in with 10.

The Warriors will play Covert in the early semi-final game at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Breslin Center on the campus of Michigan State University. In the second game at 7:50 p.m., Cardinal Mooney, 51-47 winner over Bay City All Saints, will play Eben Junction S C, 74-61 winner over Cedarville. The Warriors defeated Cedarville in last year's state championship game.

Winners of Thursday's semi-final games will play at the Breslin Saturday at 10 a.m. for the state title.

Tickets for Thursday's game will go on sale at noon today at WMC. If the Warriors are victorious Thursday, state final tickets will be on sale at the school at 7:30 a.m. Friday.

The road to the Breslin Center is lined with Warrior Wear from the Warrior WearHouse! Get your Warrior Wear at WMCHS Wednesday and wear it to the Breslin Thursday and Saturday! That includes Gip's Gang tees for $3.

The WMCSports Twitter account at bit.ly/wmcsports now has quite the following. Through Tuesday's game the site has had 1059 clicks.

In the Regional finals game Wednesday March 17, WMC was in a tight game against Lansing Christian. It was the same night of the Middle School play at Grand Haven Christian. There were many Warrior fans watching the GHCS play and following the WMCSports tweets at the same time. In fact, after the play was over and as the game was in the final seconds, more than 20 Warrior fans gathered around a cell phone to follow text messages as WMC pulled out a 42-37 victory to claim the regional Title. A cheer went up in the GHCS gym!

Tuesday night's game in Traverse City against Buckley required Warrior fans to car pool for the looong trip so there were many people getting together to ride. One group of the Warrior Nation met in Grand Haven at the Vanwagoner exit off 31. On the way to that rendezvous, Warrior parent Lee Ingersoll found out there was one seat left on the van. He called his son Max (8th grade GHCS) and asked if he wanted to go. Max wanted to but was on the school bus and the driver wouldn't allow him to get off at an unauthorized stop. Lee kept driving to where the bus was and when the bus driver was told by Max that his dad had pulled over to pick him up, the  bus driver pulled over and let Max off.  Lee and Max continued on to  meet up with their ride and cheered the Warriors to a Quarterfinals victory.

UNIFORMS ARE BEING HANDED OUT TODAY
Junior varsity and varsity baseball uniforms are being passed out today immediately after school at 3 p.m. in the dungeon. Baseball socks can be purchased for $3 and baseball caps, which are the same as last year, will be on sale for $10.

Soccer uniforms will be handed out after practice in the dungeon at 5 p.m. Green and white soccer socks can be ordered to $3 a pair.

BASKETBALL UNIFORMS NEED TO BE TURNED INTO OFFICE
If you haven't turned in your freshmen or junior varsity boys or JV and varsity girls basketball uniforms, please bring them to the office ASAP!!