GATES MILLS—Hawken avenged an early season loss to West Geauga and clinched at least a share of the Chagrin Valley Conference Chagrin Division title with a convincing 61-33 Senior Night win over the Wolverines on Friday.
With the win, the Hawks improved to 13-3 overall and 6-1 in Chagrin Division play while West Geauga dropped to 11-6, 6-2.
“These guys are so locked in right now, and it’s so much fun to watch,” said Hawken head coach Josh Nugent. “Their competitive spirit is through the roof. Something we’ve talked about is like, ‘Hey, give yourselves a chance to show everyone how good you can be.’ They’re starting to do that right now.”
That Jan. 4 loss to West Geauga served as a wakeup call for the Hawks.
Since then, the Hawks have won nine straight games.
“We came back after that game and knew we didn’t give our best effort,” we didn’t want any more games like that,” Nugent said. “We’re giving it our best effort and giving ourselves a chance to keep this train moving. We bounced back from that game with a big win over University School, that gave the guys some belief, and we’ve been rolling ever since. That West G game was a turning point for me as a coach as well, we weren’t ready to play that game. It taught us a lot of lessons, and to the kids’ credit, they’ve learned their lessons, applied it, and ran with it.”
Hawken jumped out to an early 11-5 lead over the Wolverines in the first quarter and continued that level of play throughout four quarters.
The Hawks rode that early momentum to a 29-12 halftime lead.
“These guys are starting to prove that they’re ready to go from the jump; it’s putting a lot of pressure on other teams,” Nugent said. “We know we’re not done yet; this was a big win, but we’ve got more games like this coming up.”
Hawken maintained its double-digit lead throughout the second half to finish off their guests.
Senior Taj Caver led the way for the Hawks with a game-high 27 points, none bigger than the basket that pushed him over 1,000 points for his career.
“It means everything to me,” Caver said. “This is something I’ve thought about since I was a freshman. It meant the world to me to join an elite list. It felt amazing to see my classmates come out and support me, and to share this moment with my family.”
For coach Nugent, it was a surreal moment to have a moment of that caliber come in a playoff-type game on Senior Night for one of his players.
“I don’t have a lot of words for it,” he said. “You always hope Senior Nights can be like this. We knew once he got close, we started to give him the ball more and he delivered, something he’s done for four years. It was special to see.”
Daron Hill contributed 14 points to the win and Greg Price added seven. Both David Dettelbach and Johnny Drockton posted four points while Justice Abernathy scored three, and Jordan Johnson finished with two.
“This win was about growth for us,” Nugent said. “This was about us showing how far we’ve come in a month. We wanted ourselves to understand how far we’ve come. That’s how we messaged it the whole week, this game wasn’t about bad blood, this was about our journey that we’re on, where we once were, and where we are now.”
Hawken can clinch outright possession of the Chagrin Division title with a win at Orange on Feb. 9. A loss would force the Hawks to share the title with the Wolverines.
“One of the things we talk about is how well you handle success is sometimes harder than how you handle failure,” Nugent said. “We’re in a position right now where we have to handle success. We’ve been in that place for a few weeks now, they’re doing a nice job of handling it so far; you can just tell that they’re a team on a mission.”
An early season goal is now coming into fruition with only six games left to play.
“This was a goal at the beginning of the year, and now it’s here for us,” Nugent said. “It’s a tough place to play at, I just know (Orange) is going to be ready to play. That’s good for us. We want to keep this thing moving. We have goals we want to achieve beyond winning the CVC. These testy types of games are great to have for us.”
Carson Weisman led the Wolverines with nine points, Landon Lear added eight, while Ryan Mobley pitched in with six. Colin Whiting contributed with five points and J.J. Rubinski connected on a 3-pointer.
