Hendrickson continues to raise eyebrows with win over Cedar Creek in boys basketball
If there’s a Central Texas boys basketball team that’s raised some eyebrows with its early season success, it might be Hendrickson.
Now in their second year under former Hutto assistant Kennon Dvorak, the Hawks had an impressive first month, compiling a 12-4 record with several wins over Class 6A schools and rising to No. 2 in the Statesman’s Class 5A area poll.
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Nothing changed from that course in its District 23-5A opener Tuesday, as Hendrickson ran away in the second half from Cedar Creek using a variety of high-pressure defenses to spark transition baskets and claim a key 71-51 road win at Cedar Creek High School.
“We did a really good job of executing down the stretch,” Dvorak said. “Pressure and defense is where I tell our guys we’re going to make our money. We want to cause as much chaos as we can — cause it’s hard to sustain that for 32 minutes if you’re on the receiving end of it.”
A guard-dominated team featuring a couple of athletic posts in Evan Millard and Prince Pouokam, the Hawks had four players in double figures, led by senior Davion Allen’s 24 points.
The high school version of a less than 6-foot Dominique Wilkins, Allen was a human highlight film Tuesday, throwing down three dunks, driving the lane with effectiveness, draining two 3-pointers and being a constant menace on defense.
“This is important, because last year we started off slow in district, but now we’re pushing things and playing to our best,” Allen said. “Our pressure was big today, as that led to some easy baskets, which in turn puts pressure back on them.”
The Eagles (13-4, 0-1) played short-handed with forward Kenji Franklin sidelined by injury, then took another hit when starting point guard Robert Conrad left the game with an arm injury late in the second quarter.
Hendrickson’s mixture of presses and an aggressive half-court defense eventually became too much, forcing back-to-back turnovers in the third quarter that led to easy baskets for Allen and Amir Thompson that kept the Hawks’ lead in double figures for good.
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The lead gradually ballooned to 22 during the fourth quarter, where both Allen and Thompson had rim-rattling dunks.
“I had to get some dunks in,” Allen said. “There were some people (in the crowd) talking trash about me and our team, so I had to get those in.”
Spencer Distefano (15 points), Millard (11) and Thompson (10) all joined Allen in double figures for Hendrickson (13-4, 1-0), which won’t be sneaking up on anyone the rest of the year.
“Our guys have had to adjust to a new system the last 18 months, and they’ve made a lot of strides in a short amount of time,” Dvorak said. “I think people are starting to see that. We talked about it at the beginning of the year where people are going to start to realize that our guys are pretty good and will start getting ready for them. But we’re doing a good job staying the course and keeping on grinding in the right direction.”
Micah McDonald scored 19 points to lead the Eagles, with Conrad tallying 10 points during his less than one half of play.
Cedar Creek coach Valentino Maxwell said the key for his team is getting healthy over the next two weeks before diving back into district play Jan. 3 at East View.
“This was a tough game mentally for us,” Maxwell said. “Coming in we were missing two key guys, then seeing arguably our most important player go down was rough. But we kept playing hard — the game just got away from us and you have to give a lot of credit to Hendrickson for that. … I like our guys and the way we’ve played this season, so we’ll just try to get healthy and keep trucking.”
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Hendrickson boys basketball team stays hot with win over Cedar Creek
