KNIGHT MOVES: Hun School boys’ basketball player Dylan Knight drives to the hoops in a game this winter. Senior guard Knight helped Hun overcome a shaky 4-9 start to end the season at 12-14. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

By Bill Alden

When the Hun School boys’ basketball team started its 2019-20 campaign by losing nine of its first 13 games, its players could have given up on the season.

Instead, displaying resilience, Hun won eight of its next 13 contests, posting some memorable wins on the way to a 12-14 record.

“It was a pretty rough start for us overall; we struggled early,” said Hun head coach Jon Stone. “We were finding ourselves and having said that, I think we really made a lot of progress throughout the year. We grew and got better.”

Hun showed that growth in the last week of the season, bouncing back from a disappointing 53-46 loss to Mercersburg Academy (Pa.) in the opening round of the Mid-Atlantic Prep League (MAPL) tournament on February 7 to defeat rival Lawrenceville 62-45 in a MAPL consolation contest the next day and then topping a formidable West Nottingham (Md.) squad 56-45 in the regular season finale on February 13.

“We started off poorly in the Lawrenceville game; we were struggling big time, I think we were down at least 10 if not more than that,” said Stone.

“We finally settled in and got it together, we played a little better defensively and we were able to pull away. That was good. West Nottingham is a really talented team with a lot of long athletes and we kept our string at home going. We beat Blue Ridge (Va.) (72-67 on January 24), we beat Perkiomen (Pa.) (63-51 on February 1) and and we beat those guys all at home. Those were three really good teams; it was just a really good team effort.”

In the Prep A semis against powerful Blair Academy on February 17, Hun gave a very good effort but fell short in a season-ending 70-51 defeat.

“It was a tough matchup,” said Stone, whose team had lost 59-42 to Blair in a regular season matchup.

“We went out and played really hard, but we didn’t do the things we knew we had to do in order to beat them. We couldn’t afford to turn it over as much as we did and we couldn’t afford to give up their transition layups as much as we did. That was all part of our game plan and we struggled to execute. Credit to them, they are very good team.”

Noting that the Raiders came up on the short end in some agonizing nail-biters, Stone praised his players for maintaining an upbeat approach.

“It was a fun team to coach,” said Stone. “As a coaching staff, we loved coming to practice every day and coaching these guys. You take a few of those losses and you put them in the win column and you are saying this was a great season. It was still a good one.”

Hun boasted a very good senior group in Xander Alvarado, Dylan Knight, Liam Gunnarsson, Max Adelman, Amir Basma, and Jack Weiss.

“We are going to miss each one of them, they all brought different things to the table,” said Stone.

“They really did a good job of setting the stage for the future of the program and for us getting back to where we used  to be. We are really thankful for those guys and the different things that each one of them brought.”

With star sophomore guards Dan Vessey and Jack Scott returning along with junior Kelvin Smith, sophomore Isiaha Dickens, and sophomore Toby Thornburg, the future looks bright for the Hun program.

“They are total gym rats, they are really good players,” said Stone of Vessey and Scott.

“When Kelvin played well, we won games. In all of those games that we were winning at home, he was terrific in the fourth quarter. Isiaha and Toby are only sophomores. We have some really good pieces coming back and we have got some good young kids coming up too. We are excited for next year.”

https://www.hunschool.org/athletics