Playing their fourth game in four days showed little ill-effect as Hanover turned in an impressive overall performance, downing host Lee-Davis 84-63 on Friday night. The Hawks had back-loaded their schedule to allow time for the Hanover football players to join the team after their own extended season. As a result, over the past three weeks, Hanover has played three games over four day spans prior to last week’s four day stretch.

  “We looked at it as a great challenge for us because it’s fun,” said Hanover head coach Troy Manns. “The kids love it because our practices are so much harder than the games, they celebrate if we don’t have to practice. They may be tired but they understand the importance of what we’ve done, 3-1. Two of the three games we won are district games.”

  The strategy appears to have paid off as the Hawks finished the regular season 8-2 over their final 10 games and peaking at the right time.

  Though Hanover knew they could count on the solid play of Greg Lewis, Dee Taylor and Sam Rogers coming into the season they found an added bonus in the play of sophomore Justin Peebles. But just as the team is peaking at the right time, so is junior forward Taylor Shannon. In four games last week, Shannon averaged 14.5 ppg. but saved his best for last, burning Lee-Davis for 26 points on 4-of-8 shooting from 3-point range.

  “The thing is, those guys work so hard,” Manns said of Peebles and Shannon. “We preach work ethic and it’s taken Justin a while to get going but once he understood how hard he had to play on the varsity level he took off. Tyler’s the same way. Tyler is probably our toughest guy, he’s always defending the opponent’s biggest guy, so he’s a fighter.”

  Though Lee-Davis played one of their most compete games of the season, they caught Hanover at its prime. The Hawks menacing defense was devastating, forcing the C-feds into 35 turnovers.

  “It’s our calling card,” Manns said. “It’s the one things that you control all the time. You can control your defense all the time, you can’t control making shots all the time. You can control how hard you play.”

  Though undersized, Rogers was a beast inside and out, dominating on defense to finish with 11 points, nine rebounds and eight steals.

  But Hanover’s offense was equally demoralizing, especially their ball movement. With blistering passes around the parameter, the Hawks continued to find the open man.

  “We run a motion offense so we’ve got to move it around,” Peebles said. “Pass the ball quickly and move the ball around, set screens, you set the screens most likely you’re going get a pass back and get the shot.”

  “We preach that,” Manns said. “The thing is, if you can get guys to play unselfishly, it’s fun game to play. You get them to play for each other instead of for themselves, no one cares who gets the glory because the team gets it and the kids are starting to get that now. This is a fun group to be around, they all like each other and get along and that carries over on the court. They want to see each other do well.”

  Hanover held an 11-10 lead four minutes into the first when they went on a 14-0 tear. A three from Peebles was followed by a steal and layup from Shannon. Then senior guard Lewis and Taylor went to work to score the game’s next eight points and give Hanover a 24-10 lead then 40-25 heading into the locker room.

  The third quarter has been a nightmare for Lee-Davis this season, but not on Friday night. The C-feds battled back as the Hawks began to show signs of wear from their fourth game of the week.

  As a team that has looked for leadership all season, the C-feds appear to have found it in the play of junior Cedric Holley, who only became eligible four games earlier.

  “He’s starting to step up,” said head coach Trip Metzger. “At first I think he wanted to do it all himself. But when he started to direct traffic and tell guys where to cut and where to go. You can see that point guard leadership developing with Cedric so that’s exciting to see for the off season.”

  Shrevon Clark (13 points) and Logan Dandridge (16 points) kept the C-feds in the game as it was Hanover who started to turn the ball over. With 6:57 to play, Lee-Davis had trimmed the Hawks’ lead to 57-48.

  But then just like Atlee’s Bryan Reiss did a week earlier, the C-feds watched as Lewis took control for Hanover. Lewis, who finished the game with 27 points on 10-of-17 shooting, went on a solo 8-0 run and scored 10 of the Hawks’ next 13 points to put Hanover up 20, 70-50.

  Metzger said it was demoralizing. “All of a sudden, I don’t know who it was, it wasn’t Bryan Reiss this time, it might have been Greg Lewis, but somebody went off for like 9 points and the next thing I know the leads back to 17.”

  Though Lee-Davis never recovered, Metzger said his team, which finished the regular season winless in district play, met one of his goals. “One of my goals with these guys is get to the fourth quarter with a chance and I felt like we were in the fourth quarter with a chance but we just couldn’t pull it out.”

  Colton Powell led Lee-Davis with 11 rebounds.

  For Manns, his Hawks met one of their team goal as well. “We did our part,” He said. “Finish 500 in the district, we’re 11-8 have a winning record, guaranteed a winning record and it’s the first time we’ve done that since I’ve been here and I’m proud of that. When you look at our team, we play five guards. I don’t have anybody taller than 6-3 and they play so hard. I can’t ask for anything more than I get out of them. I ask for them to compete and they do it. They bought in completely and that’s why we’ve started having some success.”

HANOVER 84, LEE-DAVIS 63
HANOVER (11-8, 6-6 Capital) — Taylor 8, Douglass 2, Rogers 11, Lewis 27, Peebles 6, Alexander 4, Shannon 26, Mahmood 0, Brooks 0, Atwood 0, Ellis 0. Totals 28 18-21 84.
LEE-DAVIS (5-16, 0-12) — L. Dandridge 16, Harvey 9, Abbott 0, Powell 3, Kunca 2, T. Dandridge 0, Spengler 2, Boone 2, Bolden 2, Clark 13, Bassett 0, Boze 5, Holley 9. Totals 24 11-18 63.
Hanover…............ 24 16 15 29 — 84
Lee-Davis…......... 12 13 17 21 — 63
3-point goals — H: Shannon 4, Lewis 3, Peebles 2, Alexander; LD: L. Dandridge, Powell, Holley, Boze.
Highlights — H: Tyler Shannon 4 for 8 on 3-points; Greg Lewis 10 of 17 from the field; Sam Rogers 9 rebounds, 8 steals; LD: Colton Powell 11 rebounds; Confederates will be the seventh seed and play second seed Henrico Tuesday in the Capital District tournament at Varina.