HART — It was no secret that Hart would try to speed Hesperia’s young ballhandlers up going into Tuesday’s county battle in Hart, but the Pirates executed their job so well, there was still very little Hesperia could do about it.
The Pirates flattened Hesperia in the first quarter of the game to take a 20-point lead and kept rolling from there, picking up a 72-20 win in West Michigan Conference Rivers play.
Hart led 14-0 in the first few minutes of the game, and when Kolton Rockwell buried a three-pointer in the final seconds of the opening quarter, it was 22-2. Rockwell was everywhere early in the game, scoring 16 points in under 10 minutes after tip-off before giving way to his teammates. He ended the night with a game-high 18.
“That’s his work finally paying off,” Hart assistant coach Garrett Talmadge said. “At the beginning of the year, his shot wasn’t falling very well, but he just keeps putting in the work. He works really hard at his sport, and it’s finally starting to show. We’re really happy for him.”
Defense, of course, was a spark for many of Hart’s points. The Pirates racked up 14 steals as a team and rushed Hesperia into many poor decisions.
Coach Scott Warsaw said Hesperia worked on going against Hart’s trapping defense in practice, but game speed proved to be a whole different challenge.
“They dictated play,” Warsaw said of Hart. “They did everything they wanted to do. It’s a heck of a club, great coaches, great players. I’ll be honest, we don’t like losing. (but) just to be on the court, we learned so much.”
Hart didn’t slow down in the second quarter, coming at Hesperia for eight more minutes and taking advantage of more turnovers to get quick buckets. The Pirates even added another buzzer-beating basket when Bryce Vander Kodde scored a putback basket just before the halftime break.
Vander Kodde was one of three Pirates to join Rockwell in double figures in scoring, putting in 12 points. Caleb Ackley had 12 points and 14 rebounds, and Jagger Lenon scored 15 points, making 4-of-7 attempts from three-point land.
Lenon was hardly the only Pirate to enjoy success from beyond the arc, as the team made 10-of-24 such attempts; Rockwell was also 4-of-7.
“It gives us a lot of confidence,” Talmadge said of nights the Pirates shoot well. “We played a game less than 24 hours ago, so we were just hoping that our kids’ legs and their shots were still there after a good night last night.”
The Panthers hoped to show improvement from their first matchup with Hart, but with the score being nearly identical (it was 72-19 in December), that didn’t play out in their favor. However, Warsaw said the team remains focused on trying to get better in order to have its best in the postseason.
“As you can see, we’re not there yet,” Warsaw said. “Hopefully we can cut down our turnovers, run our offense a little bit better and hopefully by the time districts roll around, we can compete.”
Hart, too, has eyes on the postseason, where Ludington, the team that beat the Pirates in last year’s final, will again be favored. Like Hesperia, though, Hart’s focus isn’t on the favorites, but on itself.
“We’re just trying to stay together as a team and keep working on making ourselves better every game and every practice,” Talmadge said. “We’re feeling pretty good about where we’re at right now. We’re jelling as a team. The ball’s moving really well and our defense, we’re trying to get more and more (locked in) every day.”
