Henderson Collegiate wins third straight conference tournament title

Feb. 19—HENDERSON — Even after an offseason of major roster turnover, the status quo remained in place for the Henderson Collegiate men's basketball team on Thursday night.

By defeating Voyager 59-46 at Vance Charter, Henderson Collegiate got to claim the Triangle North Athletic Conference Tournament championship for the third consecutive year under head coach George Marshall.

While Marshall admitted that Thursday's performance was far from perfect, he said that the final outcome showcased the resilience of his players and how they can come together to finish games regardless of what they did in the preceding three quarters.

"What I love so much about this team is that they've learned to win in ugly ways," Marshall said. "Shooting wasn't good in the first half and there were some breakdowns in the second half, but we found a way. That's what champions do and I couldn't be more proud of the way we finished this game."

Marshall added that winning the conference tournament title is only going to add momentum for the Pride, which now has an eight-game win streak entering the NCHSAA 1A playoffs.

That win streak started at the beginning of the month inside Voyager's home gym. Although Henderson Collegiate controlled the game, a handful of mistakes in the closing minutes allowed Voyager to trim its deficit to seven at the end of the game.

Marshall anticipated that Voyager would provide another tough matchup for his players with a conference tournament title on the line, but he knew the Pride could open up the game as long as they knocked down their inevitable open looks at the basket.

Junior Ellis Williams and senior Jaedon Whitaker both came up big in the fourth quarter with crucial baskets that enabled Henderson Collegiate to settle into its rhythm and senior T.J. Ragland to carve through Voyager's interior defense.

Ragland, who led Henderson Collegiate in scoring with 20 points, earned praise from Marshall for his scoring and defense against Voyager despite getting into foul trouble. Marshall also commended senior Jarrod Small for his strong first half, and fellow senior Markel Lloyd for constantly attacking the basket.

Having the senior class of Ragland, Small, Lloyd and others step up to fill roles vacated by Javonte Waverly, Akhiris Holden and others following graduation was an important goal Marshall set out while getting Henderson Collegiate up to speed during the offseason.

While Marshall believes the current Henderson Collegiate roster is a little more rough around the edges compared to previous iterations, he said sweeping the regular season and conference tournament championships once again highlights everyone's commitment towards maintaining the program's selfless basketball culture.

"We've built a level of sustainability that's pretty phenomenal," Marshall said. "This speaks a lot about the 2022 graduating class because we graduated nine seniors last year, which meant that we lost 80 percent of our scoring. To be able to do this again with guys who didn't play a ton last year is amazing, and I'm very proud of the class of 2022."

Even though Marshall expects a tougher climb towards claiming an NCHSAA 1A championship, he is confident that Henderson Collegiate can cause problems for any team in the postseason provided he and the players clean up a couple of basic fundamentals in their play.

"Rebounding [against Voyager] was good, and that was one of those fundamentals," Marshall said. "The other one is consistency with on-ball defense. There are too many breakdowns right now where we're trying to reach and get easy plays. That can't happen in the state playoffs, so we need to buckle down on the defensive end. We have the ability to do that, so I hope we can lock in moving forward."

Marshall and his players will now wait patiently for the NCHSAA to decide where they will be placed in the 1A Playoffs next week.

HENDERSON COLLEGIATE SCORING: T.J. Ragland 20, Markel Lloyd 18, Jarrod Small 10, Ellis Williams 8, Jaedon Whitaker 3

Contact Brandon White at bwhite@hendersondispatch.com or by phone at 252-436-2840