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Millington's Dustin Griesing has been named the 2007-08 All-Thumb boys basketball Player of the Year, the third recipient of the award and the first to win both the basketball and football honor in the same year. Griesing, a 6-3 senior who led the Cardinals to a 14-6 regular season record, received a total of four first-place votes from the six-member Thumb Sportswriters Association. Overall, Griesing was voted number one on four ballots and number two on two ballots, giving him 26 out of a possible 30 points for Player of the Year honors. Voting is on a 5-3-1 basis with five points for a number one vote and so on.

Griesing is joined on the All-Thumb First Team by two other Lapeer-area basketball players, Brown City's Donovan Ogboh and Peck's Zac Overstreet. The other First-teamers are Owendale-Gagetown's Brandon Dubs, Reese's Ty Graham and Unionville-Sebewaing's Tim Holland.

The Thumb Sportswriter's Association is a cumulative association of Thumb-area sports editors and sports writers from nine Thumb-area newspapers, those of which include: The County Press, The Brown City Banner, The Tuscola County Advertiser, The Sanilac County News, The Sandusky Tribune, The Huron Daily Tribune, The Huron County Press, Newsweekly and The Harbor Beach Times.

In order to be considered for nomination to the All-Thumb basketball teams, students must attend one of the following schools: Akron-Fairgrove, Carsonville Port-Sanilac, Caseville, Bad Axe, Brown City, Caro, Cass City, Croswell-Lexington, Deckerville, Harbor Beach, Kingston, Elkton-Pigeon-Bay Port, Marlette, Mayville, Millington, North Branch, North Huron, Owendale-Gagetown, Peck, Port Hope, Reese, Sandusky, Ubly, Unionville-Sebewaing and Vassar.

Perhaps the best overall athlete in the Thumb, Griesing accounted for more than 2,400 yards of offense as a quarterback in leading Millington to a 9-1 record and a playoff berth in the fall. He was a near-unanimous selection as All-Thumb football Player of the Year by the TSA, keeping the All-Thumb Player of the Year trophy in the Tri-Valley East conference (North Branch's Duncan Bone was the first recipient of the award in 2006).

For the basketball season, Griesing was a unanimous First Team selection in the Tri-Valley East Conference after leading the Cardinals in nearly every major statistic, including scoring (18.9), rebounding (6.2), assists (3.1) and steals (3.5). He logged more minutes on the floor than any other Cardinal, converted more three-pointers (20) than anyone else on his team and had the best free-throw shooting percentage (72.4) than any other player on his team.

In a word, he was everything to his team in 2007-08.

"No player meant more to the direct success of his team in the entire Thumb-area than did Dustin Griesing," Millington coach Walt Kujat said. "He is a natural-born leader whose leadership during our practices carried over to the games. He sets the tone in practice and for three years now, he has led us in scoring.

"Dustin is going to be awfully tough to replace."

Brown City's Ogboh capped off his career as a Green Devil by leading coach Tony Burton's team to a 18-1 regular season and the Greater Thumb East championship as well. Ogboh was the leading scorer on a team that had more than a few good players on it, but Burton admitted that his best player was Ogboh.

"Donovan was our leader," Burton said. "We relied on him to win games for us, and he did. He was the focal point of our offense. We fed off of what Donovan was able to do on the court. He's the guy that when the pressure is there, that's who we look for.

"He did that for us all year long."

Ogboh, who was a unanimous First Team choice in the GTE, led the conference in scoring at 17.1 points per game. Ogboh also led the Green Devils in rebounding with 8.9 per contest and was named Special Mention All State in Class C at the conclusion of the regular season.

Peck's Overstreet led the Pirates to a 16-3 regular season record, including a 15-2 mark and a North Central Thumb League - South division title along the way. Overstreet led the Pirates with an 11.9 points per game average while also pulling down 7.4 rebounds per contest.

"Zac was a player that we went to when we needed to score," Peck coach Garrett Kohler said. "He was our most consistent scorer and rebounder throughout the season."

Just a junior, Overstreet was First Team All-NCTL South after the season.

Dubs led Owen-Gage in scoring with 17.5 points a game, including a season-high 31 against Dryden. The 6-2 senior forward was First Team NCTL - North this season for the second year in a row and was the Player of the Year in 2007 for the Huron County Press.

"Brandon led the team in nearly every statistic this year," Owen-Gage coach Derek Howard said. "He was the best player in the NCTL and meant more to his team than any other player in the NCTL."

Reese's Graham was named First Team All-State by the AP in Class C after helping guide the Rockets to a 19-0 regular season record. This is the second year that Graham has been included on the All-Thumb team.

USA's Tim Holland was a First Team All-Greater Thumb West for the second consecutive season after leading the Patriots in scoring with 12.1 points per game.

Andrew Selich is Sports Editor at The County Press. He can be reached at (810) 664-0811 ext. 8124 or andrew.selich@lapeergroup.com.