HART — Hart forward Caleb Ackley relishes games where he feels like he has a physical advantage over opponents, and at 6-5 with a healthy build, he gets a lot of those.
Ackley took over the early part of the Pirates’ rivalry game with Shelby Thursday night, scoring 12 first-quarter points on his way to a game-high 19 as his team rolled to a 73-30 victory.
Hart assistant coach Bishop Lee, a former Shelby star, said the coaches have been intentional about pushing Ackley to seek out his points, and Thursday marked a success in that area.
“He needs to be more aggressive,” Lee said. “He’s really good at that, which is why the last couple of games he’s taken it to the hole and gotten a couple of and-ones and good finishes.”
“I had a rough stretch coming out of break, so I had to slow down, take easy shots,” Ackley added. “My teammates were finding me in the right spots and we were having fun moving the ball.”
The Pirates (11-2, 6-1 West Michigan Conference Rivers) certainly did a lot of that, putting five scorers into double digits and assisting on 18 of their 29 baskets. The scorer Hart was likely happiest to see was leading scorer Jagger Lenon, who returned from an ankle injury and drilled a pair of three-pointers en route to 11 points.
“He was cleared to practice Tuesday, but it was a snow day, and so his first practice was (Wednesday),” Lee said. “Coming off the bench today was probably hard for him, but we’re just trying to ease him right back into it, so next week he’ll be ready to go. I think he played pretty well for (his) first game back.”
The Pirate defense was equally as impressive as its offense, and the driving force on that side of the ball was Miguel Escamilla, who made his presence felt all over the court. Escamilla came very close to a triple-double, an exceptionally rare feat at the high school level, scoring 13 points on 5-of-5 shooting, passing out 10 assists, grabbing eight rebounds and swiping five steals. He showed remarkable dexterity by poking the ball free from Tiger ballhandlers without fouling on multiple occasions.
“Defensively, he’s the guy,” Lee said. “If they’ve got one star player, we’re putting him on them, and he’s shutting them down. Tonight, it was nice to see him excel offensively, taking it to the hole over and over again. They weren’t stopping the ball, so he took it at the hole, and he was getting good takes.”
Shelby (4-7, 2-4 WMC Rivers), perhaps a bit gassed after a very hard-fought victory over Montague the night before, simply could not match Hart’s energy level, said coach Rick Zoulek.
“I don’t have a lot of big bodies in our team, and we fought really hard (Wednesday) night against Montague, and Montague’s got some big kids,” Zoulek said. “I could just tell tonight that we didn’t have the fight in us that we had (Wednesday).”
Eli Kelley tried to keep Shelby in it, knocking down a couple of tough jump shots in the first quarter, but the Tigers didn’t have the firepower to keep pace. Chace Oakes did his best to slow down Ackley defensively as Zoulek chose to give his junior forward the test of stopping the Pirates’ senior star. Evan Waller led Shelby with nine points for the game.
Both coaches noted Hart’s palpable on-court chemistry, the product of the Pirates playing together at several levels for many years. And not to be lost in the shuffle, sophomore Kolton Rockwell had another terrific performance, with 15 points and 10 boards.
“Even the guys that come in off the bench are pretty smooth with each other,” Zoulek said. “That’s a huge part of it. They spend a lot of time in the offseason, and they’ve come up together.
“Kolton Rockwell is a really good all-around player, probably their most underrated player because he can run the point, he can play the post, he does a lot of everything.”
Zoulek added that his team was prepared for Hart’s athletic defense, having recently faced WMC Rivers unbeaten North Muskegon, but was less sharp this time around.
“North Muskegon does some similar stuff,” Zoulek said. “They get really physical with you and they’re very athletic as well. We handled it better (when we played them), but you’ve got to be sharp on your game. When teams play you like that, if you’re a little bit off, you’re going to make a lot of mistakes, and that’s what happened tonight. Instead of making a bounce pass, we were trying to throw a soft pass. We were a step behind everything.”
Ackley said he was thrilled to see not only himself, but so many of his teammates have such a big impact on the Hart victory.
“It feels awesome, because everyone puts in a ton of work in practice and when coaches are done with practice, everyone’s staying after shooting,” Ackley said. “It’s fun to see everyone else’s work pay off. It’s a ton of fun.”
