Hawthorne Hornets Boys Basketball wins 9th straight District 7 Championship

Syltavius Kelley February 16, 2020 Basketball, Gainesville, Hawthorne High School, High School Sports, Williston High School 1,033 Views

The Hawthorne Hornets and Williston Red Devils faced off in the 1A District 7 Championship game on Saturday. The Hornets beat the Red Devils 65-56 in a fiercely fought battle to win their ninth straight District Championship. The Hornets won the first two previous matchups against the Red Devils in the regular season 58-51 and 62-39.

Trailing at Halftime

In the first quarter, Dre Lawerence hit two three-pointers to put the Hornets up 11-9,  but Williston Red Devils came back in the final minute of the first quarter to end the quarter up 16-14 against the Hornets. The Hornets were 4 of 12 from the field in the opening quarter.

In the second quarter, Jeremiah James took it to coast-to-coast to make a difficult layup to put the Hornets up 22-20 against the Red Devils.

The Hornets eventually fell behind 29-22 against the Red Devils in the second quarter, but towards the end of the quarter, the Hornets went on a 7-1 run to cut the Red Devils lead to one after Jeremiah James made a tough layup. The Hornets went into halftime down 30-29. Jeremiah James and Torey Buie both had eight points at halftime.

Hawthorne pulls away in the end

After Williston ended the third quarter on a 5-0 run to start the fourth quarter up 45-41, Hawthorne Head coach Greg Bowie said, Williston, subbed out Keith McGuire in the fourth quarter for a one minute stretch, which Hawthorne jumped into a 1-2-2 full-court press. Within that, one minute stretch of McGuire being out Hawthornes Torey Buie took the lead in the fourth quarter with a spin move led into a layup to put the Hornets up 49-47 with 5:54 remaining.

The Hornets went on an 8-0 run in the fourth quarter to put the Hornets up 51-47 with Torey Buie scoring their last eight points with 5:01 remaining in the fourth quarter.

“I figured we couldn’t play any worst than we already had been playing, so I knew at some point we gone have to make a run so as long as we had time on the clock, I still felt we had a chance to get the lead,” Bowie said on his confidence of his team being down most of the game.
Hawthorne went on to outscore Williston 24-11 in the fourth quarter to win 65-56 as they became the 2020 1A District 7 Champions. Torey Buie scored 13 points in the final quarter, going 5-of-5 shooting and ending the game as the leading scorer with 28 points.
Buie had a flashy no-look assist to Thurman Mills and a ferocious dunk to ice the game.

District Champs

“We always wanna take care of our District, so it’s an ugly win, but at some places, district titles are hard to come, so we gone count it,” Bowie said.

https://twitter.com/Coachadkinsd/status/1228845040019103744

Looking ahead to Regional Semifinals

“Tonight we took a step back we got to get back to work Monday hopefully we got all that out of our system,” Bowie said about his team going forward.

Hawthorne improved to 21-3 with the win and will face 12 – 7 Pahokee in the 1A Regional Semifinals. Pahokee lost to Wildwood 69-63 Saturday night.

“I know we gone have to play our best game Thursday, but we definitely not gone be able to play the way we played tonight and still get a victory Thursday,” Bowie said.

The Regional Semifinals game is set for 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 20 at Hawthorne.

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