Second-half surge helps Hillside boys basketball team roll over Athens Drive
Hillside and rookie head coach Rashard Lee-Worthy conjured a dream season in 2019, winning their first 19 games en route to a final record of 28-2 and 3A quarterfinals appearance.
As they prepped for an encore, though, Trey Crews, Elijah Thomas and the rest of the Hornets’ players knew they had doubters throughout the Triangle.
Hillside graduated three of its top four scorers. The team lost nine seniors in total, Crews said. Plus, the Hornets were moving up a classification: This season is their first in the 4A Triangle 8 Conference.
“A lot of people expected we lost too much coming in,” junior forward Thomas said. “I told my boys this preseason, ‘We’ve got to work our butts off. Nobody’s going to give us anything.’ ”
Holding true to Thomas’ words, the basketball team made the outdoor track its second home last fall, running and training and prepping incessantly. As Crews, a senior guard who also plays football, put it: There were “hardcore workouts” galore.
It’s safe to say the workouts paid off.
With a 68-43 home win over Athens Drive on Friday night, the Hornets moved to 14-2 and 8-0 in the Tri-8. Their only two losses have come at the hands of Greensboro Dudley and an uber-talented Millbrook squad.
“Everybody expected us to not being doing what we’re doing right now,” Thomas said. “So it’s a blessing.”
The victory, which also bumped Hillside to 9-0 at home, was a case study in how Lee-Worthy wants his team to play — even though it didn’t have a picturesque start.
After the first quarter against a sub-.500 Athens Drive team, Hillside led just 9-8. Behind Crews, Thomas and senior Dr’ake Thompson, the Hornets carved out a bit of breathing room in the second quarter. At halftime, they were up 30-18.
But Lee-Worthy, a 1995 Hillside alumnus and former Tennessee forward, wasn’t satisfied with his team’s energy. Hillside had a sparser crowd than usual. His team had started slow. Too slow.
Luckily, he said, his players “respond to coaching.” So when he challenged them to boost their pace in the second half, they made the necessary adjustments and did just that.
The results were both positive and, from a spectator’s view, plenty entertaining. Crews skied up for rebounds and handed out no-look assists on fast breaks. Thomas rose up for an eye-popping block. Thompson hammered home a dunk. Players on the bench stood and started chants.
“We just work,” said Crews, who averages a team-high 17 points. “We work hard.”
Lee-Worthy said that second-half turnaround proved Hillside, despite its playoff aspirations, isn’t taking anybody for granted. As the top team in their conference — a talented one, featuring Riverside, Panther Creek and Green Hope — the Hornets are plenty aware there’s a target on their back.
“We know the games we play now will affect seeding in the playoffs,” Lee-Worthy said. “We want to get the best seed we can. We keep that in the back of our mind. But we play each game individually. We don’t get too far ahead of ourselves — especially when you’re 8-0 in the conference, people are going to give you their best shot.”
But Hillside has also relished in that position — a little bit more so, players conceded, since it’s a surprise to those outside the team. But not to them.
“When Lee-Worthy came in last year, he told us that he was trying to change the program,” Crews said. “We got on the train with him, and we just rode, really.”
This story was originally published January 24, 2020 at 9:56 PM with the headline "Second-half surge helps Hillside boys basketball team roll over Athens Drive."
