Stone Beckwith wasn’t quite able to lead Beal City to Highland Conference and Class C district boys’ basketball titles. The Aggies fell short in those quests. But with Beckwith’s strong leadership and scoring production, they were still able to finish the season at 17-5 and send Beckwith off to a potentially promising hoops career at Saginaw Valley State University.

We came up a little short in our goal for a district championship,” said Beal City coach Kaleb House. “We had some really nice wins. Our seniors were very good leaders. We’re going to miss them.”

A major highlight was defeating defending Class C state runner-up McBain 55-53 the final game of the regular season.

It was the first time McBain had lost for two years in the conference, so we were happy to get that win,” House said. “I thought we played really well down the stretch. It was a close game. Stone made a couple of really nice plays.”

We played really good team defense,” Beckwith recalled. “Every game we won, it was our team defense.”

Beckwith, a four-year varsity player, had 22.3 points per game and wound up with more than 1,400 for his career. He had a season high of 37 points.

He had an ankle injury and scored nine points his first game back,” House said. “He averaged about [16 points] last year. He really worked hard on his jump shot. That was a benefit for him. He shot about 40 percent from threes.”

I found an outside shot that was a good for me, creating my own shot,” Beckwith said.

Beckwith, House pointed out, did much more than score.

He averaged 6.5 rebounds and had a well-rounded game, 2.5 steals a game,” House said. “We saw several box-and-ones on him.”

An excellent football player for the Aggies, Beckwith will focus on one sport as he gets ready for the college level.

I’ve always wanted to play college basketball,” he said. “That’s my first love. I’m in the weight room every day and working on my speed. I’m running track so I can get quicker. I need to stay in shape.”

Beckwith is also focusing on being a better defensive player.

That’s the main transition from high school to college basketball,” he said.