That, in a nutshell, summarizes what happened here Saturday as the North Central Jets secured their third straight Class D state championship at Michigan State University’s Breslin Center.

The Jets upended Buckley 78-69 in a clash of unbeatens to capture the boys basketball crown, cementing a legacy of success unseen in the Upper Peninsula and seldom seen in the state.

Chassell, the only other U.P. quintet with three straight state titles, completed its magnificent run in 1958 with a state record 65 straight wins. North Central surpassed that mark in January and has obliterated that standard with a string of 83 consecutive victories.

The Jets weren’t the Lone Ranger Saturday when it came to a state dynasty. Flint Beecher beat Grand Rapids Covenant Christian 73-58 for its third straight Class C crown and fifth in the past six years.

Dennis Grall | Daily Press The North Central Jets gather to hoist the Class D state championship trophy Saturday at the Breslin Center in East Lansing after beating Buckley 78-69 for their third straight crown.

North Central (27-0) completed its’ journey in a most impressive manner. How about a first-quarter offensive explosion with a state finals record 38 points achieved by hitting 7-of-8 shots beyond the 3-point arc and 15-of-18 overall? The Jets converted their first 15 shots.

That 83.3 percent shooting staked the Jets to a knock-your-socks off 38-20 lead. “Kudos to them, but we knew they were not going to shoot like that all night,” said Buckley junior Austin Harris, who had 22 points. “We kept our composure.”

Buckley coach Blair Moss said “we could have folded right there, but that is not us.”

Good teams don’t fold at that point, and Buckley is a very good team. The Bears fought back against what appeared to be insurmountable odds and closed the gap to 68-65 on a tremendous leaping one-hand putback by Ridge Beeman with 2:40 left.

“We had to fight tooth-and-nail in the fourth quarter,” North Central coach Adam Mercier said. “If we score 38 points in a quarter, typically teams kinda roll over. That didn’t happen today, and that’s a credit to those Buckley kids.”

The Bears (26-1) rallied when Dawson Bilski went to the Jets’ bench just 1:32 into the half. That allowed Moss to use a box-and-one defense on Jason Whitens that helped change the tempo, along with a couple of quick North Central turnovers and nearly six minutes of going scoreless from the floor as the Bears drew within 57-47.

“We needed to protect the paint. It was kind of fooling with them a little bit,” Moss said of applying junk defenses. “It paid off and we got back in the ball game.”

On the precipice of letting the upstart Bears get completely back into the game, North Central regrouped at one of the scariest points of their astounding careers and ran off the next eight points for a secure 76-65 cushion with 43 seconds left.

Whitens and Bilski, the two senior standouts for this sensational squad, each had four points in that game-clinching outburst.

“We knew how bad we wanted it. How much are you going to give,” Whitens said in the Breslin lower level hallway of thwarting Buckley’s massive bid to get the lead. “We are never going to quit. It is just heart. You give everything you’ve got to give.”

In the post-game press conference, Whitens said “you don’t think a team’s going to back down. You always have to keep coming back at them.”

Bilski led the Jets with 25 points on 8-of-9 shooting despite missing a good chunk of the second half with four fouls. His 18 points in the first quarter tied a finals record.

Whitens finished with 23 points, ending his career with a school-record 2,062 points that is fifth all-time in the Upper Peninsula. Bobby Kleiman had 11 and Marcus Krachinski had 10. The Jets hit 26-of-42 field goals (61.9 percent).

Bilski set the early pace, making all seven field goals, including four triples. That continued a pace he found in pre-game warm-ups when he hit just about everything.

With the basket looking like Lake Superior and you’re on the beach near Pictured Rocks, is there a better place? “Coach said to run some plays for me,” Bilski said later. “You get shooting with some confidence. You pull up and go shoot on nights like those. I was going to be fearless.”

The Jets erased a 5-2 deficit with 17 unanswered points en route to their biggest lead of the day, 37-14. Whitens had two triples in that spurt and Krachinski and Seth Polfus also hit triples in the first quarter.

“That first quarter definitely set the tone,” said Polfus. “I couldn’t believe what we were doing. Dawson started it out, hitting his shots. Then one hit and then we were all hitting. It was kind of contagious.”

Once Buckley’s late challenge was rejected, a sense of relief filled the Breslin Center and the Jets had a rather subdued celebration of joy unlike the exuberant reaction Thursday night following the double overtime 84-83 conquest of rugged Southfield Christian that was decided on a Polfus basket with .2 second to play.

All-stater Denver Cade had 25 points and Joey Weber had 15 points for the Bears, who were in their first state championship game.

This was the first meeting of undefeated finalists since 1971 and the first in Class D since Covert beat Ewen-Trout Creek in 1966.

Buckley 20 20 10 19 — 69

North Central 38 16 10 14 — 78

Buckley — Weber 15, Harris 22, Cade 25, B. Beeman 2, R. Beeman 3, Kuhn 2. FT: 10-12; F: 20; Fouled out: R. Beeman; 3-point field goals – Harris 4, Cade 3.

North Central — Krachinski 11, Polfus 3, Bilski 25, Kleiman 12, Whitens 23, Dombrowski 4. FT: 17-27; F: 13; Fouled out: None; 3-point field goals – Krachinski 1, Polfus 1, Bilski 4, Kleiman 2, Whitens 1.