Milestone: Navarre Alhassan reaches 1,000 points in Waterloo's district loss to McKinley

NILES — The final basket of Waterloo senior Navarre Alhassan’s career was a milestone achievement.

Eventually, he was in on the celebration.

In Tuesday’s 72-42 loss to Perry in a Division III district semifinal at Niles McKinley High School, Alhassan scored a basket to open the fourth quarter. Then the referee blew his whistle and Alhassan had no idea why.

“I thought I was getting a technical,” Alhassan said with a laugh. “I had no clue. It was such a shock to me.”

Alhassan began the game with 984 career points. His coach, Jason Wise, stayed silent.

“We purposely didn’t tell him because we didn’t want him to be focused on just trying to get that number,” Wise said. “I didn’t know until Saturday."

That’s because he went back through last season’s scorebook and found some uncounted points.

“We were missing a couple of games from last season,” Wise said. “We thought he was about 50 away.

“We kept it to ourselves. I didn’t want that pressure on him. And we didn’t want it to take away from our game plan.”

The basket gave Alhassan 17 for the game and 1,001 for his career.

Despite Alhassan's efforts, the Vikings (16-9) had their hands full against the Pirates (19-4), who raced out to a 9-2 lead.

Alhassan hit a baseline 3-pointer and a jumpshot to cut the deficit to two, but that’s as close as the Vikings got.

Perry led 16-10 at the end of one quarter and were up by 10 at halftime. The Pirates then outscored the Vikings 27-13 in the third quarter to all but clinch a berth in Friday’s district final against Beachwood (16-8).

“We hung around as long as we could, but sometimes you run into a team that is that much better than you,” Wise said. “We knew it was a tough matchup and things had to be perfect defensively for us to have a chance."

Braydan Richards led the Pirates with 20 points. Also reaching double figures were Datone Washington Jr. with 16 and Jake Cubbison with 13.

Alhassan said Perry was as strong as any team the Vikings faced this season.

“We knew it was going to be a battle,” Alhassan said. “They were very athletic. We tried putting up a fight, but they were too much.”

Speaking of battles, Alhassan overcame a torn meniscus that ended his junior season.

“It was a journey, man,” he said. “I had no idea what the season was going to look like — I was scared.”

Alhassan said he started off slow.

“I thought it was going to be a quicker rehab,” he said. “Over the summer, I worked … I thought I was good [but] it started to hurt again. I had to sit out [offseason workouts]. I didn’t start playing full go until the beginning of [varsity] practice.”

The Vikings’ other senior starters were Ryan Wise, Anthony Podojil and Aidan Hall.

“With Ryan being my nephew, those kids were always around my family,” Jason Wise said. “They truly are like nephews to me.”

Waterloo qualified for the district for the second time since 2020, when that Vikings team won the school’s first district championship since 1989.

“[These seniors] wanted to build off what those [2020 players] did,” Wise said. “They’ve helped continue to set a foundation for our program. And they have worked so hard.”

Podojil scored eight points while Kai Warren and Jackson Eichler came off the bench to score six and five points, respectively.

Alhassan said he’s “thankful for the guys who were with me to make it happen. We grew up together.

“I loved it,” he said of the basketball ride he’s been on since fourth grade. “Those guys are my family. Every time we come to this locker room, we say ‘Family on 3.’

“And that’s what it is.”

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Waterloo loses to Niles McKinley in OHSAA boys basketball district