WEST POINT — The Oak Hill Academy boys basketball team remembers its painful 35-33 loss at Heritage Academy on Nov. 11.
In their third game of the season, the Raiders battled the defending state champion Patriots all night. Down two points with two seconds left, Oak Hill had a deep 3-point look for the win, but Daniel Harrington’s shot was offline.
“That was a very humbling experience for us as a group,” Oak Hill coach Andrew Howell said.
But the Raiders took lessons from the loss, and Howell was impressed with how the team bounced back.
The setback was the Raiders’ first of the season, and prior to Thursday’s game against Winston Academy, it remains their only defeat.
“We took it well, we learned from it, and we let it go, and look at where we are now,” said Harrington, a senior.
Oak Hill is 9-1, and the Raiders are enjoying a stellar start under Howell, a first-year head coach at the school. The former associate head coach at Presbyterian Christian School brought welcome energy when he took over for John Bauer on June 1.
“I’ve never had a coach like that,” Harrington said of Howell, who works his players hard during practices and holds film and practice meetings during the day. Harrington said Howell runs the team like a college program, and that’s just great with him.
“It’s amazing, and you can obviously tell that it’s working, because the numbers, they don’t lie,” Harrington said.
Howell has orchestrated a significant turnaround thus far from last season, where Oak Hill finished around .500. Neither Howell nor the Raiders knew their exact record — “I don’t even want to talk about it,” senior Branden Stevenson said.
Practices under Bauer were often disorganized, the Raiders said, and lacked the energy Howell instantly brought.
“It was peaches and cream,” Stevenson said. “We just rolled through the practice and went home.”
Stevenson, a transfer from West Point High School, had to get used to a new coach for the second straight year after making the trip north on Eshman Avenue. But seeing Howell’s energy and the team’s newfound chemistry certainly helped.
“It was hard, but that made it easy for me,” Stevenson said. “Super easy.”
Many of the Raiders had years of experience playing together — given the diminutive size of Oak Hill, almost all of them play multiple sports — which helped fuel the harmony the team has found.
“There’s no arguing, no fighting,” senior Cooper Hill said. “If we tell somebody that they’re in the wrong, they don’t argue with us. They look at us, and they learn from it, and they improve from what they’ve done wrong and try to make it right. The chemistry is just amazing out here with this team.”
A large, experienced senior class has helped the Raiders shoot out of the gate, too. Harrington, Hill, Stevenson and Jaden Craven have played critical roles all season, and point guard Dalton Magers is set to return from suspension, too. Sophomore Cameron Dill and juniors Manning Huffman and Cohen Trolio also play key minutes for Oak Hill.
For Huffman, a starter for the Raiders, watching the standout senior class shine is nothing new.
“I’ve played with them my entire life, and they’ve never let me down,” he said.
That was certainly the case Nov. 19, when Oak Hill delivered payback to Heritage Academy with a 47-45 win in its own home gym. The Raiders showed they were well and truly recovered from the loss just eight days earlier, where turnovers played a key role.
“We knew that we had to come back and get back focused and come out stronger the next game we played,” Huffman said.
The result showed Oak Hill’s resilience, and the Raiders have kept right on rolling. Howell noted, though, that their work is far from done yet, and he still wants his team to take things game by game.
“They understand they’re off to a good start, but it doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “We’ve gotta make sure that they’re still working, and they know that. They don’t get too big of a head.”
But he’s nevertheless pleased with the “huge turnaround” the Raiders have made.
“If we can get these guys clicking, we’ve got a chance to be pretty good,” Howell said.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 24 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 24 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
