Throughout the football season the connections between Hanover quarterback Sam Rogers and wide receiver Danny Trsic were key in the Hawks ride to the Group AAA Div. 5 state semifinal game.

  On Thursday night at Atlee it was Rogers and Trsic going to work on the Raiders for a 60-55 win, only this time it was in the game of basketball.
  But the performance was nothing new for Trsic. The oft-overlooked senior has become so reliable in the post that Hanover head coach Troy Manns had nicknamed him Double-Double.

  “He always gets a double-double,” Manns said. “He’s so solid. If he were four more inches tall he would be a Division I prospect. He plays hard. He’s smart and he does what you ask him to do. He competes. Anytime there’s a challenge he wants to step up to it.”

  Against Atlee, Trsic once again notched a double-double.

  Despite burning the Raiders for 18 points, Trsic said he is not an offensive player. “I know that’s not my role so I just try to put all of my emphasis on rebounding and scoring on putbacks and getting defensive stops,” he said.

  Most of Trsic’s scoring came from boxing out the Raiders, getting to the ball first and putting it back in the basket, something he has a distinct ability for. “To me it’s all about position and just fight,” he said. “It’s who wants the ball always has a chance to go get it.”

  “Some people just have a knack for the ball and he has it,” Manns said. “I just wish he was about maybe 6-5.”

  Seemingly built from the same mold as Trsic is Rogers who continues show outstanding leadership and maturity in his freshman year at Hanover.

  “He’s just a leader,” Manns said. “He’s like Danny, where he competes. These guys compete, compete, compete and because he competes he brings other people with him. And having him on the floor is like having another leader on the floor. He comes over and he’s asking me a million questions during timeouts. He’s organizing guys and that’s what you want. The biggest attribute a point guard has to have is not ball handling ability, it’s leadership and that’s what he has.”

  Rogers doesn’t attribute his leadership and confidence to his outstanding football season but from the basketball players that surround him. “I was just trying to work myself on the team and then a lot of players have helped me,” he said. “Helped me get more comfortable with the team and eventually I was able to get more playing time.

  “I think the players around me are giving me a lot of confidence, telling me any mistake I make, keep my head up,” he said. “Coming out of football season I wasn’t really comfortable with anything, sort of still in football mode.”

  Against Atlee, Rogers showed both shooting touch from outside and the ability to drive into the post, scoring nine points in he game.

  Though still winless in Capital District play, Atlee (0-9 Capital, 5-11) showed they are a team much improved over the beginning of the season. The problem for the Raiders was, Hanover (3-6, 6-10) has also grown since that time.

  “At first we got off to a slow start and the football guys came in,” Trsic said. “All together we started playing like a team. Over the course of the year we started to gain our chemistry and right now I think we’re playing our best basketball.”

  Against Atlee, Hanover struck quick on back-to-back put-back baskets from Trsic, racing out to an 8-1 lead in the first three minutes of the game.

  But the Raiders regrouped on both ends of the court. Barrett Prince (12 points) scored on a reverse then Kyle Rodgers (6 points) connected on back-to-back baskets. When Rueben Rucker (7 points) scored at the one minute mark he capped an 8-0 run by the Raiders and gave Atlee its first lead of the game, 9-8.

  Bryan Reiss scored a game high 18 points for the Raiders and started the second quarter in emphatic fashion with a dunk off a fast break. But the period turned into a nip and tuck battle with Atlee holding a one point lead, 21-20, heading into the locker room.

  Though trailing, Manns was not concerned with how his Hawks played. “The first half we were just trying to feel them out,” he said. “It’s a game of adjustments and we were looking at a lot of things. We threw a lot of different things at them and in doing so sometimes it confuses your guys, but it’s cool because it gives us an idea of how they respond to different things. Then we made some adjustments in the second half.”

  Reiss picked up where he left off in the first half by hitting back to back threes to give Atlee its biggest lead 27-22 a little over a minute into the third.

  But then Hanover turned up the intensity at both ends, going on a 16-1 run to break the game open. A Rogers jumper put Hanover up 41-30 with 1:49 to go in the period.

  The Hawks then held off a late charge from the Raiders to pick up the win.

  “Our biggest problem has been lack of energy,” Manns said. “Some games we just don’t get up for them for some reason. But these Hanover County games we never have to worry about.”

  Even though the Hawks lost to Lee-Davis a week earlier, Manns said the way his team played in the second half opened their own eyes. “We talked, the Lee-Davis game, the second half, that was probably the hardest we played all year and the guys got a taste of what it’s like to play that hard,” he said. “They got so much positive feedback from their classmates and people in the neighborhood about how hard they competed and they came out this game.”

HANOVER 60, ATLEE 55
HANOVER (3-6 Capital, 6-10) Taylor 5, Jennings 3, Fehl 0, Shannon 0, Lewis 14, Fleming 2, Alexander 2, Lyons 7, Trsic 18, Rogers 9, Brooks 0. Totals 25 5-12 60.
ATLEE (0-9, 5-11) Garthright 0, Rucker 7, Morrison 0, Ratchford 0, Hodges 6, Reiss 18, Rodgers 6, Prince 12, Williams 4, Johnson 1, Brooks 1. Totals 22 4-8 55.
Hanover…............. 8 12 24 16 — 60
Atlee ...................... 9 12 14 22 — 55
3-point goals: H — Lewis 3, Rogers, Taylor. A—Reiss 4, Prince 2, Rucker.