The Burlington School downs Henderson Collegiate
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HENDERSON — A trip to Rock Hill, South Carolina, on Tuesday was far from pleasant for the Henderson Collegiate men’s basketball team, as they sustained a lopsided 83-51 loss to The Burlington School.
While head coach George Marshall was disappointed that his players were not able to return home with a crucial, early season victory, he knew that The Burlington School would provide an immense challenge and give him an opportunity to evaluate where his team was after four games.
“I have to give a huge amount of credit to Ryan Bernardi and his staff,” Marshall said. “They do a really good job of getting their team prepared on a night-to-night basis and his players step up as a result.”
Marshall said that he typically crafts rigorous non-conference schedules for Henderson Collegiate to get them both physically and mentally prepared for the NCHSAA 1A Playoffs, with some of the program’s opponents last year including Moravian Prep, Wesleyan Christian Academy and Mount Zion Christian Academy.
Even though the COVID-19 pandemic prevented Marshall from scheduling so many tough games, he was able to put together two non-conference dates with The Burlington School and Lincoln Charter, and was curious to see how his players would perform against the former on Tuesday.
Marshall was impressed with the way Henderson Collegiate team members handled themselves in the first quarter, as they only trailed The Burlington School 16-12 and appeared to be ready for everything their opponent had to offer on both offense and defense.
Henderson Collegiate continued to hold steady with The Burlington School until Akhiris Holden had to come out of the game due to foul trouble, which enabled The Burlington School to go on a scoring run at the end of the second quarter that gave them a 39-24 lead.
Fatigue caught up to Henderson Collegiate in the second half, which forced them to watch as The Burlington School pulled away with a 32-point win, but Marshall believes that his players will be able to build their stamina up once they’ve completed more practices and games.
“The Burlington School has a national schedule, and they’ve played 18 games while we’ve only played four,” Marshall said. “We’re going to schedule insanely difficult teams to play, and we do this on purpose to remind people that our goal is to go 1-0 each day. We approach these challenging games with a desire to win, but a loss exposes our weaknesses and allows us to fix those so we can focus on the next part of our season.”
Holden ended his evening with a double-double that saw him tally 12 points and 12 rebounds. Senior Javonte Waverly was the top scorer for Henderson Collegiate on Tuesday with 15 points, while also adding four rebounds, six assists and three steals.
Marshall came away from Tuesday’s loss more confident in his team’s ability to defend their NCHSAA 1A Championship, but affirmed that everyone on the roster has to take it upon themselves to embrace the strengths of their gameplan such as rebounding and aggressive offense.
“The bread and butter of our team is defensive rebounding,” Marshall said. “Offensively, I would like to see us get to the line a little bit more and to continue attacking the basket relentlessly. Overall, I really like the way our team has been playing through these first few games, but we just didn’t play our best basketball during a 10-12 minute stretch on Tuesday.”
Henderson Collegiate will make a short drive over to Vance Charter on Friday evening for a 7:45 p.m. matchup as they try to pick up their fourth win of the year.
- By Brandon White bwhite@hendersondispatch.com;
Bottom of Form
HENDERSON — A trip to Rock Hill, South Carolina, on Tuesday was far from pleasant for the Henderson Collegiate men’s basketball team, as they sustained a lopsided 83-51 loss to The Burlington School.
While head coach George Marshall was disappointed that his players were not able to return home with a crucial, early season victory, he knew that The Burlington School would provide an immense challenge and give him an opportunity to evaluate where his team was after four games.
“I have to give a huge amount of credit to Ryan Bernardi and his staff,” Marshall said. “They do a really good job of getting their team prepared on a night-to-night basis and his players step up as a result.”
Marshall said that he typically crafts rigorous non-conference schedules for Henderson Collegiate to get them both physically and mentally prepared for the NCHSAA 1A Playoffs, with some of the program’s opponents last year including Moravian Prep, Wesleyan Christian Academy and Mount Zion Christian Academy.
Even though the COVID-19 pandemic prevented Marshall from scheduling so many tough games, he was able to put together two non-conference dates with The Burlington School and Lincoln Charter, and was curious to see how his players would perform against the former on Tuesday.
Marshall was impressed with the way Henderson Collegiate team members handled themselves in the first quarter, as they only trailed The Burlington School 16-12 and appeared to be ready for everything their opponent had to offer on both offense and defense.
Henderson Collegiate continued to hold steady with The Burlington School until Akhiris Holden had to come out of the game due to foul trouble, which enabled The Burlington School to go on a scoring run at the end of the second quarter that gave them a 39-24 lead.
Fatigue caught up to Henderson Collegiate in the second half, which forced them to watch as The Burlington School pulled away with a 32-point win, but Marshall believes that his players will be able to build their stamina up once they’ve completed more practices and games.
“The Burlington School has a national schedule, and they’ve played 18 games while we’ve only played four,” Marshall said. “We’re going to schedule insanely difficult teams to play, and we do this on purpose to remind people that our goal is to go 1-0 each day. We approach these challenging games with a desire to win, but a loss exposes our weaknesses and allows us to fix those so we can focus on the next part of our season.”
Holden ended his evening with a double-double that saw him tally 12 points and 12 rebounds. Senior Javonte Waverly was the top scorer for Henderson Collegiate on Tuesday with 15 points, while also adding four rebounds, six assists and three steals.
Marshall came away from Tuesday’s loss more confident in his team’s ability to defend their NCHSAA 1A Championship, but affirmed that everyone on the roster has to take it upon themselves to embrace the strengths of their gameplan such as rebounding and aggressive offense.
“The bread and butter of our team is defensive rebounding,” Marshall said. “Offensively, I would like to see us get to the line a little bit more and to continue attacking the basket relentlessly. Overall, I really like the way our team has been playing through these first few games, but we just didn’t play our best basketball during a 10-12 minute stretch on Tuesday.”
Henderson Collegiate will make a short drive over to Vance Charter on Friday evening for a 7:45 p.m. matchup as they try to pick up their fourth win of the year.
