Like I said before, "Who wants it the most?"..... This game came down to shear heart, will and desire..... on this night, Hanna wanted it just a little bit more..... Playing without two of their normal starters, Shoop Sheppard (Took a trip to NY???) and Justin MacAuthor (grades caught the flu), most people thought Hanna was done for sure.......
So with a lineup of two freshmen (Joe Marshall and Jahaad Proctor), one Soph (Gabe Mack), a junior (Jonas Paige) and a senior (Shaq Brimm).... Hanna realized they had nothing to lose, but everything to gain....
Those kids played their hearts out.... Lower Dauphin could have played much better but showed no sense of urgency in the second half of the game.... The first half, they got any shot they wanted using a variety of back door plays and hitting shots off the screens....
Cody "The Real" Deal, in my opinion, did too much standing around trying to shoot threes.... With his size and strength, he could have abused Hanna inside but by shooting all those threes, he bailed them out.....
Paige was on fire for The Tribe and it seemed like he couldn't miss a shot.... He and Proctor hit a number of shots from the curl play that Coach Rogers love to run.... Paige ended up with 23 points and 8 boards while Sharp Shooting Freshman Jahaad Proctor chipped in 12 points lighting it up from the outside..... Soph Gabe Mack was money at the free throw line nailing 8 - 8 in the 4th quarter and handled the pressure with great poise for a young guy.... Brimm did a very good job chasing shots and forcing LD to adjust the way they attacked the basket.... I don't know if any local HS player can leap as high or quickly than Brimm.....
Got to give credit where credit is due..... I thought Coach Rogers flat out out coached Hofsass in the second half.... He used his timeouts wisely and made very good offense/defense substitutions as well.... One thing I thought I would see more of was senior captain Vaughn Jones.... Jones has proven over the years that he can play with any team in this area and he had a great attitude while sitting on the bench... He's a tough and rugged football player but is skilled enough to do just about anything that's asked of him.... No disrespect to any of the young forwards on the team, but none of them have showed me why they should play 32 more minutes than Jones.... I hope there's no personal ill feelings between he and the coach because they would have to look past that as they move forward.... Jones can help this team out and I'm sure the players that care about their team would love to see more of him as well.....
Also, since this is the unit that sealed the playoff berth, I would keep this as my starting unit for the rest of the season.... Sheppard would never wear another Indian uni as long as I was the coach.... His actions were selfish.... I don't normally say this about a player but you never know if he's going to hear it anywhere else.... Congrats to Hanna as they move forward.....
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Jones is not good enough to play more minutes and Rogers should bring Shoop back for districts.
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