Chelsea basketball faced Bedford. Officially they’re known as the Kicking Mules, but in basketball it’s illegal to kick the ball, so the mascot may require some adaptation to be appropriate. The Dribbling Mules? The Free-Throw Shooting Mules? There are any number of possibilities, really.

Anyway: Chelsea basketball faced the Bedford Fill-In-The-Blank Mules. On that particular evening they must have been the Rented Mules, because Chelsea beat them like…oh, you get it.

“No, see, you have to turn right onto Old US-12. Then you’ll see Thompson’s Pizzeria shortly after you pass M-52.”

Chelsea faced Flat Rock. Wait, what? No, Flat Rock isn’t Nebraska’s version of Plymouth Rock. It’s a small town in southeastern Michigan. It’s a town where they still actually build actual cars in an actual factory in the actual state of Michigan. It’s also a town that — according to Wikipedia, which is completely reliable all the time no matter what, right? — is home to a Law & Order: SVU actor.

These young fans brought a little extra encouragement for two of the Bulldogs:

Chelsea basketball faced South Lyon. Both my editor and I kept getting confused, though, because South Lyon’s uniforms were nearly identical to Saline’s. I’m pretty sure we both referred to them as Saline at least once. Hey, don’t judge: we see Saline much more frequently than we see South Lyon.

For the uninitiated, this is a basketball:

The student section was happy to see Cody:

This is what happens when members of the student section ask you to take a picture:

Jack would like you to look over there:

But Logan is looking at you:

It was a close game, but the Bulldogs fended off the South Lyon Lions — the Fightin’ Redundancies — for the win.

Chelsea faced Gabriel Richard in the second round of the playoffs.

It didn’t take long for GR to build a small lead, and they held that lead for much of the game.  Chelsea chipped away at it several times, but GR always found a way to get it back.

Still, the Bulldogs kept working, and in the fourth quarter they finally managed to close the gap.

The Bulldogs’ late surge sent the game to overtime, but GR found its touch again in OT, and Chelsea’s season came to an end.

A few days after defeating Gabriel Richard to win the district championship, the Chelsea girls basketball team headed up to Linden to face Olivet in a (very dimly-lit) gym.

The Bulldogs brought a small but vocal student section:

Chelsea kept it close through the first half, but Olivet pulled away in the second half to bring Chelsea’s playoff run to an end.

The boys basketball playoffs started with two games in Onsted: Chelsea vs Ida and Milan vs Onsted.

In the first, Chelsea defeated Ida by a comfortable margin.

When I turned to get shots of the players on the bench, several players noticed my camera pointing in their direction and…well…

In the second game, Milan faced Onsted — and a substantially partisan hometown crowd.  Despite the raucous support for Onsted, Milan managed to built an ostensibly comfortable 15-point lead early in the fourth quarter.

It may have been a decidedly pro-Onsted crowd, but the Milan student section had a noticeable presence:

Late in the game, Milan’s seemingly comfortable 15-point lead disappeared entirely; with less than a minute to play, Onsted completed its remarkable comeback by taking a one-point lead.  Milan was left with one chance to prolong its season…

…and that’s exactly what they did thanks to the layup pictured above.  And there was much rejoicing — though after surrendering a 15-point lead and managing to win only by a last-second shot, there was just as much relief as there was rejoicing.

A day after the boys ended their regular season, the Chelsea girls played in their district championship game against Gabriel Richard.

Thanks in large part to excellent free throw shooting late in the game, Chelsea eked out the win.