Mike Vukovcan The Hopewell HS boys’ basketball team has done plenty of good things which led to their 4-0 start heading into last night’s game against Avonworth.
Has this team gotten better and improved every game? Yes.
Does this team have things they need to work on and really improve in order to be a real contender in the playoffs and eventually a championship caliber team? Yes, there’s no question about that.
Last night in their section opener against Avonworth, we saw examples dealing with both of those questions.
Being a young team is a glass half full/half empty thing. The positive (half full) is that when you have talent like this sophomore heavy Hopewell does, it means you have time to develop and hopefully get better over the next 3 years. The downside (half empty) is that you have to deal with the growing pains of players being young, making mistakes and needing to grow up both mentally and physically.
This is the challenge HC Doug Biega, and his coaching staff will have to deal with this season. The message and mentality will change; it just will take time for a 100% buy-in and understanding of how things need to be done all the time.
Last night, Hopewell went on the road and suffered their first loss of the season, 69-62.
While the coaching staff isn’t into morale victories, there are some positive things that can be taken from last night’s loss.
The biggest is that this group of players didn’t quit despite trailing at one point 44-22. While that might not be a big deal to some, trust me, this means something. These players were down big and could have felt bad for themselves, packed things up and went through the motions. However, that didn’t happen and in fact, with 3 minutes left, this was just a 3-point game.
Another positive is that the Vikings had to make this comeback without their best player, James Armstrong, who sat for the majority of the second half with foul trouble.
Foul trouble was an issue all game as Hopewell tried to battle this bigger, more physically developed Avonworth team. In fact, Armstrong ended up fouling out with 5 minutes left in the game, starting guard Jack Biega fouled out with 4 minutes left and starting forward Brody Rock fouled out with 3 minutes left.
Despite all of this foul trouble for basically the entire game, Hopewell was able to re-group and outscored Avonworth, 40-25, after trailing by 20 points. Of those 25 points for Avonworth, a large majority of them came from the free throw line, which means when they weren’t fouling, Hopewell was playing good defense.
The Antelopes game plan for this game was to clog the paint with their size and not allow Hopewell to get the ball inside and force them to shoot from the perimeter. The Vikings plan to try and win was getting out to run and making it a full court game. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to do that until the second half.
Hopewell’s record now stands at 4-1, 0-1 in section with their next game coming on Tuesday at home against Beaver. This is another big section game.
One other thing to point out, last year, Hopewell lost both games to Avonworth- 85-54 and 85-71. Last night’s loss was by just 7 points so progress is being made. Keep in mind, championship teams aren’t built in 3-4 months or even a year.
HOPEWELL BOXCORE:
Brody Rock: 21 points
James Armstrong: 15 points
Jeremy Benninghoff: 8 points
Avery Bokor: 7 points
Tre Cameron: 5 points
Justin Shegog: 2 points
Riley Biggins: 2 points
Nick Adams: 2 points
