The young Hanover girls’ basketball team may have found an important component to future success in the emergence of sophomore Madison Pachner. On an undersized Hawks’ squad dominated by underclassmen, Pachner stepped up big in a 59-34 win over rival Lee-Davis on Friday night.

  “Madison Pachner was absolutely terrific,” said Hanover head coach Kevin Brooks, noting that she stepped up to take the pressure off standout Mariah Douglas. “Mariah is usually someone everyone keys on and they take her out of it. She did a great job of finding the open teammate and Madison did a great job of stepping up and delivering, especially inside.”

  More importantly, Pachner’s improved play opens up the offense for the rest of the Hanover team. “It allows Mariah to not have to shoulder the load inside, rebounding, scoring…being the biggest player out there,” Brooks said. “(Douglas) has someone else who has similar size to her who can help her rebound and block out out there…I think it puts us in a good position where we can match up with some of the bigger teams we play.”

  Against Lee-Davis, Pachner scored a game high 13 points, all in the first half, to give the Hawks a comfortable lead heading into the locker room. Then with the rest of the Hanover starters, she recorded little playing time in the second half.

  Pachner spent the fall season on the Hanover volleyball team and will take up track in the spring, so her development this winter has been a matter of getting her basketball legs under her.

  “I don’t play very much so I think it takes a while,” she said. “Especially at the beginning of the season I wasn’t making that many shots at all, but I’m doing better.”

  “Madision is very wise beyond her years,” Brooks added. “I’m so excited that she’s in our program, not only now but the next two years. She has the leadership, the attitude and the toughness, the physicalness to the floor that we need and I think people feed off her. I’m glad she’s playing so well.”

  But Pachner was not alone in her efforts. Hanover got one of their best performances across the board from every player in the game.

  Sophomore Brook Throckmorton came out red hot from beyond the arc, nailing back-to-back threes to get things rolling. In the first quarter, Pachner and Throckmorton (12 points, four 3-pointers) combined to score all but two of the Hawks’ 18 points.

  Pachner’s scoring in the first quarter, opened up the defense for Douglas (12 points) to go to work in the second where she scored seven.

  “We played really well tonight, one-through-fourteen, we played really well as a team,” Brooks said. “I was really proud of our team.”

  And while Hanover was on top of their game, such could not be said for Lee-Davis, which turned in one of its worst performances of the season. “We played horrible,” said C-feds head coach Alvin Puller. “That’s the worst we played all year. We played better against (No. 4) Highland Springs than we played against (Hanover).”

  Puller said he believes that because of the intense rivalry between the two schools, his players came in too amped up. Such could be the reason for the contest turning in a brutally physical game in which a combined 37 fouls and one technical were whistled on the two teams. In comparison, there were only three fouls whistled in the first half of the boys’ game between Hanover and Lee-Davis.

  “There was a lot of shoving and pushing and nasty play, on both sides,” Puller said. “It’s not just them, it was us too. Instead of playing basketball we played football and didn’t concentrate on the things we were supposed to do.”

  What the C-feds did not do was make shots and take care of the ball in the first half and Hanover took advantage, running out to a 42-17 lead at the half.

  But as they have done all season, Lee-Davis came out of the locker room in the second half with intensity and began chipping away at their opponent’s lead.

  The C-feds scored five unanswered points in the first 1:10 of the second with Raven Sims getting the ball inside to center Becca Parramore, who led Lee-Davis with 11 points.

  Brooks said the start of the second half was the only downside of the night for the Hawks. “We got off to a big lead, made shots in the first half, they didn’t make shots,” he said. “We played pretty well defensively and the second half there’s always that let down. One of the things we talked about was not let them get off to a good start and get back in it. They scored the first six points of the second half. Then we were able to settle down and execute some things and everybody get to play and everybody get to contribute.”

  Douglas answered for the Hawks with a free throw and jumper then senior Wendy Jordan’s shot pushed the margin to 49-22 with less than four minutes to play in the period. The Hawks’ starters then rested for nearly the remainder of the game as the cushion allowed Brooks to play his young bench for important minutes. “We have some younger people that need game experience,” he said. “They practice every day too. We wanted an opportunity to get them some meaningful minutes in a game and I think they took advantage of it, did a really good job defensively.”

  Though there are still weeks to go in the season, Pachner said the Hawks have made substantial strides so far. “I’d say that we’ve come a long ways,” she said. “Back in the summer I was like, ‘this might be a long season,’ but tonight especially we stepped it up because we really wanted this game.”
 
HANOVER 59, LEE-DAVIS 34
HANOVER (3-5 Capital, 6-9) Woolard 7, Barrett 0, Cox 2, Throckmorton 12, Caler 0, Deadmon 2, Webb 1, Douglas 12, Jordan 4, Passmore 0, Woodring 2, Hess 4, Pachner 13, Fehl 0. Totals 22 9-13 59.
LEE-DAVIS (1-7, 3-11) Thomas 1, Bryan 5, Puller 1, Sims 4, Gardner 3, Hughes 5, Parramore 11, Skeens 0, Price 4. Totals 11 12-21 34.
Hanover…............. 18 24 11 6 — 59
Lee-Davis…........... 7 10 11 6 — 34
3-point goals: H — Throckmorton 4, Hess, Woolard.