Saturday, January 7, 2012

By Rich Barton
NJS.com Staff Writer

Paul Little had a game-high 23 points as HCA stayed perfect on the season with a 53-37 win over Leonia on Friday night.

LEONIA – There was a celebration on Friday night at Leonia High School a the school's all-time leading scorer, Ahmed Hassan, became the first player in school history to have his number retired. In years past, with an opponent like Hawthorne Christian Academy on the schedule, the celebration might have continued right on through the game with an easy victory against an overwhelmed opponent.

But Hawthorne Christian is no longer a stuffed shirt brought in to pad the win/loss column. The defenders continued to be the biggest surprise team in North Jersey this season behind the play of their two bigs, Paul Little and Alex Thomas.

Thomas finished two blocks shy of a double-double and Little had a game-high 23 points, including an emphatic dunk that punctuated Hawthorne's Christian's best start in school history with its seventh consecutive win, 53-37, at Leonia High School.

"Every win is an important win for us and it was big for us to get off to a good start," said Hawthorne Christian head coach Kevin Standford. "I think for (24) minutes, we're a great team, which we showed tonight. But if we can ever put a full 32 minutes together, then we really have the chance to do something special."

Wilfredo Munoz led Leonia with 14 points.

The ceremony for Hassan took place before the game and Leonia had every reason to come out fired up. Instead, it was the Defenders who made a statement. After Leonia's Wilfredo Munoz scored the first basket of the game two minutes in, HCA closed the quarter on a 15-2 run with Alex Thomas scoring seven of those points.

"We didn't want to give them any momentum and we had to take it from them early," said Thomas, a 6-foot-7 sophomore center. "We know with them retiring a great player's number and having a big crowd that they would have their adrenaline going. We had to block that out and just play the way we knew how to play, especially on defense. Once we got the lead, we weren't going to give it up."

The Defenders were in control throughout the first half, but Leonia hung around and closed to within eight on a fadeaway three-pointer at the halftime buzzer by Munoz to cut their lead to 26-18.

"That was a tough place to be in because we felt pretty confident in how we played the first half, yet we were only up eight," said Standford. "We didn't have any reason to panic though, we just had to keep running our sets and good things would come of it."

Little, a 6-foot-3 forward, showed he could score either going to the paint hard or pulling up for jumpers throughout the first half. However, it was only particular play in the second half that showed off his explosiveness. Thomas pinned a shot against the backboard and the block led to a fastbreak that finished with a thunderous-one-handed slam by Little to double the Defenders' halftime lead to 16 points and Leonia never got closer than double-digits the rest of the way.

At 7-0, Alex Thomas and HCA are off to the best start in school history.

Thomas did a little bit of everything inside with 17 points, 12 rebounds, and eight blocks for Hawthorne Christian (7-0). Little led all scorers with 23 points and added eight rebounds. The Defenders also got steady guard play from Jake Hart along with brothers Chris and Nick Ault.

Munoz was the only player to reach double-figures in scoring for Leonia (1-6) with 14 points, 10 of those coming in the first half.

Hawthorne Christian is off to its best start in school history, but the true measuring stick will come in the upcoming two weeks. They face both Emerson and Midland Park next week before showdowns with Dwight-Englewood and Cresskill with league title implications on the line. Although the prospects look bright, the team's lone senior starter, Little, knows he has to keep the team grounded.

"We don't have anything to celebrate over yet," said Little. "We're off to a great start and it's been a lot of fun to finally win some games. But we know how much better we can be, That's the point where we're pushing to get to. We feel good about where we are, but we still have to work hard. We have bigger goals this season and we won't stop until we reach them."

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