It didn’t take long for the Hawthorne boys basketball team to take control of its game against visiting Trenton at Bill Woods Court on Monday night.
The Hornets (13-4) raced out to a 20-0 lead and cruised to a 69-25 home victory.
“That’s something that’s been a point of emphasis for us, get out to a fast start,” said Hawthorne coach Greg Bowie. “Most of our losses this season we were down maybe 10 to 12-0 in the first quarter in the majority of our losses so the last couple of weeks we’ve just been focused on starting fast and tonight we were able to do that.”
Junior C.J. Ingram’s dunk and-one ignited the crowd and gave Hawthorne an 18-0 lead.
In fact, Trenton (11-9) didn’t score its first basket until freshman reserve Tyler Bullis (team-leading eight points) drained a 3-pointer from the right wing with 33 seconds to play in the opening quarter.
It helped spark a 10-0 run as the visiting Tigers got back in the game on a 3-pointer from the top of the key by junior Clark Hausner.
That cut the deficit in half, 20-10, with 6:06 to play in the half.
However, an 8-0 run in the final 46 seconds of the half, which included another dunk by Ingram, gave the Hornets a 36-15 lead at the half.
They forced a running clock with 3:01 remaining in the third quarter on a finger roll by senior Caleb Rollerson for a 54-18 lead.
“It’s a tough matchup for us,” said Trenton coach Eric Bullis. “Every single one of their kids plays football and none of my kids play football. For us, we wanted to play a very tough schedule this year. We’ve played Williston, we’ve played Newberry twice, we’ve played Hilliard, and now we’ve played Hawthorne, so now we see where we’re at versus where we want to go.”
Ingram scored a game-high 21 points, followed by sophomore Darian Bowie (15 points, four rebounds) and Rollerson (11 points, seven rebounds).
Junior Decarion Debose added eight points, five rebounds, and four assists.
“That’s what we’re capable of doing,” Coach Bowie said. “C.J is obviously our top scorer but there’s some other guys that can get double digits on any given night so hopefully here finishing up the regular season we can continue that going into district because if you have multiple guys that can score, you’re pretty tough to defend.”
Ingram just missed a double-double, finishing with nine steals. He added six rebounds and six assists and committed no turnovers.
Trenton, which pulled its starters once the game got out of hand, travels to Interlachen at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, followed by the regular season home finale on Friday against The Rock’s varsity team.
The Tigers will be the No. 3 seed in next week’s 1A-District 7 tournament and host No. 6 seed Bronson in Tuesday’s quarterfinals.
Hawthorne, which has won nine in a row, will host Chiefland at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday for Senior Night in the regular season finale.
The Hornets will be the No. 2 seed behind top seed Newberry in next week’s 1A-District 6 tournament.
