From Yahoo Sports –

Making matters even more disorienting for Fennville fans were the events that transpired just before (Wes) Leonard’s death. The junior — who was also the quarterback of the school’s football team this fall — not only hit the winning shot in the team’s final regular season game, but by doing so he also ensured that the Blackhawks would finish with a perfect, 20-0 record.

“It’s tough to take in,” Leonard’s teammate Shane Bale, told The Sentinel. “It’s like somebody from your family, you know?”

Opposing coaches and their teams were also still trying to come to grips with the teen’s passing. Bangor (Mich.) coach Rocky Johnson said that he was completely stunned by the death.

“It’s hard to stomach,” Johnson told MLive.com. “We are all hurting now.

This is not my usual turf but I wanted to call attention to the funeral passage in Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans –

“Why hast thou left us, pride of the Wapanachki?” he said, addressing
himself to the dull ears of Uncas, as if the empty clay retained the
faculties of the animated man; “thy time has been like that of the sun
when in the trees; thy glory brighter than his light at noonday. Thou
art gone, youthful warrior, but a hundred Wyandots are clearing the
briers from thy path to the world of the spirits. Who that saw thee in
battle would believe that thou couldst die? Who before thee has ever
shown Uttawa the way into the fight? Thy feet were like the wings of
eagles; thine arm heavier than falling branches from the pine; and
thy voice like the Manitou when He speaks in the clouds. The tongue of
Uttawa is weak,” he added, looking about him with a melancholy gaze,
“and his heart exceeding heavy. Pride of the Wapanachki, why hast thou
left us?”

Maybe that’s appropriate.

James Pilant