Cold-Shooting Hawk Boys Zoned Out in DAC Final, 42-31
By Jeff Malmgren
Their shooting shirts were wrinkle-free, but their jump shots were not.
That irony couldn’t be ironed out Saturday and the season ended for the Highland School Hawks boys basketball team with a 42-31 loss to the Seton School Conquistadors.
The Hawks shot less than 26 percent from the field (9-for-35) in the Delaney Athletic Conference tournament final, contradicting the symbolism of the shooting shirts they wore pregame. The words “Carolina 25” were printed on the back of those baby blue shirts, referencing the 25 jump shots each player had to make in a five-minute shooting drill to earn a shirt.
Had the Hawks hit 25 shots collectively, Saturday, they would have easily beaten Seton, but no Highland player made more than four field goals in the 32-minute game in Warrenton.
“They hit more shots than we did,” junior post Pat Kelly said. “No. 12 [Mike Salomon] was hot. He’s a good shooter. I don’t think we stayed on him well enough. He lit us up in the first two quarters.”
With four 3-pointers, Salomon scored 16 of his game-high 18 points in the first half. Still, it was a focused defensive effort that led the Conquistadors to victory, as they shot almost as poorly from the field as Highland. Seton went from 14-for-40 from the field (35 percent) and became the third-consecutive Highland opponent to score fewer than 44 points in the DAC tournament.
“You give up 42 points, you should win,” Highland coach Gary Leake said. “Defensively I can’t complain. We just need to step forward and hit our shots. Tonight we just didn’t have legs.”
The fourth-seeded Hawks shot much better in the first two rounds of the DAC tournament, beating Randolph Macon Academy, 58-43, in the Feb. 24 quarterfinals and then upsetting No. 1 seed Fredericksburg Christian, 49-40. Leake said that Friday night victory over Fredericksburg caused a hangover.
“Emotionally, physically, it took everything we had last night,” Leake said Saturday. “You knock off the No. 12 team in the state, the team that’s undefeated in your conference…It was rewarding last night and yet it was draining.”
Kelly scored a team-high 19 points against Fredericksburg and helped bring Highland back from a five-point four-quarter deficit...See the Wednesday print edition of the Fauquier Times-Democrat for the complete story.