A week after pulling out an incredible three-overtime win against Lee-Davis, Atlee appeared primed to take fellow county rival Hanover the distance as well. But a 17-point second quarter explosion by Hanover’s Justin Peebles broke open a close contest and the Hawks cruised to an 89-53 victory.

  “We knew we had to come into this game and play hard because of the rivalry,” Peebles said. “They’re a pretty good team and somehow we pulled it out.”

  The victory improved Hanover’s record to a less than impressive 5-11 (5-5 Capital), but recent play has shown the Hawks are arguably the best five-win team in the Central Region. In the past two weeks the Hawks have fallen at #7 Highland Springs by five points, at #3 Henrico by 10 and at Varina by seven. With five of their final six games at home, Hanover is primed to go on a run.

  “We’ve been in all our games and like I said we’re just starting to gel,” said Hanover head coach Darren Thornton. “Some of the guys we got a little late because of the football season. It takes a little time for everything to gel- put in a new offense, so they’re really getting comfortable with that now and things are really starting to click for us.

  “We had to come in here and make a statement,” a confident Peebles said. “We’re one of the best teams in the county- One of the best teams in the region. We’ve got to start playing like it.”

  “I think we’re one of the better shooting teams in the district and really in the region,” Thornton said. “We’ve got a lot of guys that can put the ball in the basket and we’re really starting to feed off one another as a team.”

  Feeding off each other was a contributing factor that made the Hawks click on Friday night. Against Atlee a majority of Hanover’s baskets came off assists, with players passing up shots of their own to find the open man.

  “That’s one of the things we really want to focus on is teamwork,” Thornton said. “We feel like we’re a deep team that we can bring guys just like Justin Peebles. He might not start; he might come off the bench- the guys that can really light it up and score a lot of points. We think that we’re really deep and we want to use all the weapons that we have.”

  Atlee raced out of the gate, taking a 12-5 lead three minutes in as Kevin Drayton (13 points) and Ruben Rucker (10 points) pressed the tempo. But Hanover answered with a 12-0 run, thanks largely to the efforts of junior guards Nick Douglas (10 points) and Sam Rogers. Douglas and Rogers connected on jumpers. Douglas then drilled a three from the right wing, Rogers a free throw and Douglas again. Douglas then found Chris Childress under the basket and the Hawks led 17-12.

  Bryan Ratchford (9 points) momentarily stopped the bleeding for Atlee but from the final minute of the first it was Hanover in control.

  Leading 20-16 in the opening seconds of the second, Peebles came into the game and immediately went to work. After splitting a pair of free throws, Peebles (21 points) connected on a three from the left baseline; then another three off a feed from Trayvonte Brown (15 points); then a plus-one goal off a feed from Brown to score 10 points in a 2:07 minute span that put the Hawks up 32-19. Peebles added two more threes before the period had finished; the best of which came off a Rogers assist from his knees that gave Hanover a 47-26 lead heading into the locker room.

  Peebles only scored four points over the remainder of the contest but Thornton pointed out that was just an example of his players sharing the ball. “He’s just starting to take what the defense is giving him,” Thornton said. “They just start doubling him a whole lot and he just starts to get other guys involved. He’s got other parts of his game that he’s really been working on and getting better at. So he just starting to play that and show that a whole lot more.”

  Atlee’s Jacob Hurd scored the first basket out of the locker room but Hanover quickly answered with back-to-back threes by Brown and Childress, two jumpers from Tyler Shannon (14 points) and one from Childress for a 59-32 lead.

  Hanover rode a 70-38 lead into the fourth quarter and immediately widened it further. Peebles scored the first four points of the period then Douglas put back a Peebles miss and Jordan Wade drilled a wide-open three from the right wing. When Shannon connected on a jumper with 4:46 to play the Hawks led 81-40.
  Even with the outstanding offensive display, Thornton attributes the win to the Hawks’ effort on the other side of the ball. “I think our guys rallied together and we really turned it up on defense,” he said. “We keep preaching defense is the key and I think our guys really embraced that so we really put our focus on the defense.

  “It was great to win, especially against a rival like Atlee,” Thornton said. “We knew they were going to come in and play hard against us. These guys see each other all the time and the guys wanted to have a good showing tonight.”

ATLEE (4-13, 3-6 Capital) — Gray 2, Bazemore 3, Randolph 5, Winters 2, Miller 2, Drayton 13, Ratchford 9, Hurd 6, Heerman 1, Rucker 10. Totals 22 3-12 52.
HANOVER (5-11, 5-5) — Brown 15, Wade 9, Haynesworth 3, Peebles 21, King 2, Shannon 14, Douglas 10, Harris 0, Rogers 6, Childress 8, Mahmood 1, Arechiga 0. Totals 31 18-31 89.
Atlee….................. 14 12 12 15 — 52
Hanover…............ 20 27 23 19 — 89
3-point goals — A: Rucker 2, Randolph, Drayton, Ratchford; H: Peebles 4, Brown 2, Douglas, Wade, Childress.