Lansing duo commits to Empire 8 basketball

Over the years, Lansing has had plenty of student-athletes go on to continue their careers in college. But when two athletes in the same sport get to play in the same conference at schools separated by just a mile and a half, it’s something truly unique and special.

That’s the story of Aiden Hathorn and Alex Girich. This fall, the duo will head up to Rochester to play in the Empire 8 conference. Hathorn is heading to Nazareth College, while Girich will play just a few minutes away at St. John Fisher University. Hathorn and Girich each explained their decisions to take their talents to the same city.

“I think it was really just the coaching staff,” Hathorn said. “I’ve been to a lot of their games during our basketball season, going up and watching on the weekends and looking at the team, how they lead the team, how they played, and also seeing how the other players on the team work together. It just seemed like a really good bond between all the players. I’ve been in communication with the coaches for quite some time before committing, and I just really liked everything about them. I knew after talking to them and seeing the team play that I wanted to go there.”

“I’ve also been going to the games with Aiden to watch the Naz games and the Fisher games,” Girich said. “We went to one of the games at Fisher and I just loved the environment. I had some JUCO looks from other schools and I didn’t really see myself going there. I was told to reach out to the Fisher coach and another coach as well. Fisher reached out to me and they asked me to go to open runs. I did pretty good and I just decided that day that I wanted to go to Fisher.”

Hathorn and Girich join programs that are coming off strong campaigns last winter. St. John Fisher made the Empire 8 semifinals where they lost to Nazareth, and the Golden Flyers would end up falling to Utica in the championship. The two are sure to be a big boost for their respective programs and get them over the hump to win a conference title.

“Hopefully I can just go out there and just compete at the best of my ability,” Hathorn said. “It’s definitely a big jump from high school to college. It’s definitely going to be a lot of work I need to put in to contribute at a high level this year. But I’m hoping that when I get there, I’ll just be able to give everything I got on defense, rebounding, and be able to make smart plays on offense as much as I can. Whatever the coaches need me to do, I’m gonna do it.”

Girich will hope to get some playing behind backing up Connor Williams, who has gone viral for his captivating stature of seven feet and 360 pounds. 

“I’m just going to be trying to help fill in for practices, be on the floor, get in the weight room, and just do the best I can to make a presence down low in practices and anything in game,” Girich said.

Hathorn and Girich will head to the college ranks with plenty of winning pedigree, especially if this season is anything to go by. Their guard-forward partnership helped the Bobcats win their first IAC championship since 2008 and make it all the way to the Section IV Class B final. Both athletes made sure to make their final campaign at Lansing a successful one.

“We’ve been playing with each other for so long,” Hathorn said. “I know that going into the year, we really wanted it so badly. There was a lot of work that we put into it, and we just know each other so well. I think we work with each other so good. It was a lot of chemistry.”

“In practices when we were going head-to-head doing 3v3s and 4v4s, we’d be going at each other,” Girich said. “We were pushing ourselves to the best of our abilities. I think that really strived to get us that IAC championship. I’m really proud of that.”

As Hathorn and Girich get set to play college hoops, it isn’t lost on them at all that they’ll be going from teammates to adversaries on the court soon enough. That means the playful banter has already begun.

“It’s definitely hit [me], for sure,” Hathorn said. “It’s not like we’ve been playing against each other since seventh grade, so this is nothing new for us. If anything, it’s just gonna be a really fun experience. I know his moves, so I think it’s gonna be a lot of fun.”

“He can say he knows all my moves,” Girich said. “He can know them, but he still can’t guard them.”