EGR’s Simon Neuhaus scores his 1,000th career point

East Grand Rapids senior Simon Neuhaus scored his 1,000th career point on Friday. (Photo | Lenny Padilla)

EAST GRAND RAPIDS - Simon Neuhaus has been waiting for this moment for four years.

The East Grand Rapids senior reached the 1,000 career point mark on Friday when he scored 13 points as EGR beat Forest Hills Northern 51-29.

“It’s obviously a huge accomplishment,” he said. “It’s been a goal of mine since I started playing high school basketball. It’s no my main goal here at East Grand Rapids, that would be for league, and district titles. And we want to go as far as we can this year. It’s a personal goal.”

The 6-foot-5, 200-pound guard almost didn’t get to set the mark at home.

East Grand Rapids beat Chandler Park on Saturday and Pioneers coach Derrick Owens pulled Neuhaus when he had 22 points. Two more and he would have reached 1,000, but Owens wanted Neuhaus to get it at home.

“In the game against Chandler Park, we were up by about 20 points, they would have pulled me anyways,” Neuhaus said. “But it worked out nice to score the 1,000th point here at home with our crowd behind us.”

Neuhaus, the son of David and Julie Neuhaus, is averaging 17 points and six rebounds this season.

When it comes to college recruiting, Neuhaus is keeping his options open. He has an offer from Hope College.

“I’ve been talking to a lot of D2s and D3s,” he said. “All my offers are all D3 so far. But things are wide open. I’m trying to be patient and trying to find the right fit for me.”

He had a chance to play in front of some East Coast schools, too.

“I’ve talked to a lot of high-academic D3 schools on the East Coast,” Neuhaus said. “I went to a camp at Yale in the summer and a lot of D3 schools were there recruiting. So I got a lot of looks from that.”

Neuhaus, who has a 4.10 GPA, said he has a bigger goal than basketball.

“Academics is a big deal to me because (basketball) is just one step in my life,” he said. “Ultimately, I’m trying to prepare for the next 40 years of my life. That’s the bigger goal. I’m trying to be smart about setting myself up for the future.”