Hawks soar past Badgers
Hendrickson 76, LHS Boys 64
By JEREMY HEATH Staff Writer

Heath Hopson: Junior post scored a game-high 31 points in the loss.

For the first 10 minutes, the Lampasas boys' basketball team appeared capable of running up and down the court with the hiccupquick Pflugerville Hendrickson attack.

The Badgers, behind long-distance passes and blistering drives, were more than trading buckets with the Hawks. They led by as many as six points three times in the first 10 minutes.

Then reality struck.

The more athletic Hawks started stepping in front of those long-distance passes, driving unmolested up the baseline and through the lane for much of the next 22 minutes.

The result: Hawks 76, Badgers 64.

"Things were good for us in the beginning," LHS senior guard Clay Tyner said. "Early on we were running with them, and our fast offense was working for us. We saw success in that, but we couldn't do it for the whole game. They were a lot more athletic than we are, and tempo and turnovers became the biggest difference."

With the loss, the Badgers fall to 12-8 overall and 0-3 in District 25- 4A. The Hawks improve to 14-9 and 2-1. The contest also closes an opening stretch that saw LHS play the top three teams in the district -- Austin Lake Travis, Pflugerville Connally and Hendrickson.

If the Badgers expect to compete for a playoff spot, the must-win games start tonight at Cedar Park against Vista Ridge.

"We believe we can beat anybody, and now we have the games we know we have to win," Tyner said. "We've got to beat the teams we're supposed to beat and upset either Connally or Lake Travis at home. We don't like this feeling of losing at home, and we don't want to let it happen again."

LHS head coach Scott Harrelson has relied upon his defense all season. Whether the offense was struggling or producing, he felt he could rely on a fundamentally sound effort from the team when it was in its own end. That was not the case Wednesday.

"How do we hold Connally to 47 (a 47-45 loss on Dec. 21) at their house and give up 76 to Hendrickson at home?" Harrelson asked rhetorically. "The whole thing was not stopping penetration. Our whole game plan was to stop No. 2 (forward T.J. Johnson), and he scored 29. Nobody would put a body on him."

In contrast, the Hawks' defense kept bodies on LHS junior post Heath Hopson. It took a Herculean effort for Hopson to drop in 31 points.

Hendrickson guard Darian Fowler scored 15, and forward Marquese Dunn added 12. The Hawks also got eight apiece from Jordan Harris and Jonathan Rodriguez.

The Badgers got 15 from Tyner and 10 from Heath Cofield, but the next-highest scorer was Warren Scott with four.

"Hopson had an outstanding game," Harrelson said. "But we had three guys (Hopson, Cofield and Tyner) scoring for us, and they had several."

LHS led 15-11 after the first period, but the Badgers were outscored 28-13 in the second to fall behind 39-28 at the intermission.

"They pretty much were running layup drills in the second quarter," Harrelson said.

"Nobody would step over (to challenge drives) and try to stop them."