Hawkins’ slam dunks, Moore 3-pointer help rally team past Arroyo in first-round game
By Brian Sumpter
Lake County Sports on Facebook
MIDDLETOWN >> In a game where every single point mattered, a few were just a little bit louder than the others. Take the two slam dunks by Jon Hawkins, for instance.
Hawkins, a junior forward, arguably had two of the three biggest shots for the Middletown Mustangs in a dramatic 48-47 victory over the Arroyo Dons of San Lorenzo on Wednesday night in the opening round of the North Coast Section Division 4 playoffs at Middletown. Bodhi Miller, senior guard, certainly had the other as the Mustangs (22-6), a true Division 4 team, withstood a Division 2 team in Arroyo, student body of 1,481, a school that was moved down two divisions to compete in the playoffs against Middletown, student body 407.
“That’s a school almost four times our size,” a smiling Middletown head coach Jake Diehl said minutes after the Mustangs, the No. 2 seed in the Division 4 field, punched their ticket to the quarterfinals Saturday against Mission San Jose of Fremont – another Division 2 school, this one with a student body of 1,825. That game takes place in Middletown at 7 p.m.
“Eight of the teams in Division 4 are Division 2 teams,” Diehl said of the caliber of competition Middletown is going up against this postseason.
Under the North Coast Section’s new competitive equity playoff system, teams can be moved up or down a maximum of two divisions to achieve what are supposed to be more competitive playoffs. The competitive part certainly came into play during Middletown’s white-knuckle victory over the Dons (12-15) who had a chance to win the game in the final seconds.
Hawkins, the Mustangs’ leading scorer with 17 points, missed two free throws with 34.7 seconds left that could have given Middletown a bit of breathing room leading 48-47. Arroyo worked the ball across midcourt before calling a timeout with 25.4 seconds left. When play resumed, the Dons took a hard look at Middletown’s defense and called their final timeout with 11.0 seconds remaining.
With the crowd roaring, the Dons inbounded the ball one last time and tried to work it inside for a final shot, but a pass caught a piece of Middletown guard Harrison Brown’s leg. By the time Arroyo scrambled after and recovered the ball, the Dons had no choice but to launch an off-balanced desperation 3-pointer that hit the back of the rim and ricocheted back toward the court as the final buzzer sounded, touching off a wild celebration as Middletown fans stormed the court to enjoy the moment with Mustang players and coaches.
That the Mustangs even found themselves in the position of one-point winners didn’t seem likely earlier in the game. Hitting just about every shot in sight, open or not, the Dons moved out to a 15-point lead on three separate occasions in the second quarter and were threatening to run away with the game before halftime.
“We slowed down on our offense and took a little bit more time with our shots,” Diehl said. “That seemed to help, and we carried that right over into the second half.”
More importantly, the Mustangs kept their cool, according to Diehl.
“They are the definition of resilient,” Diehl said of the Mustangs. “They’ve overcome adversity time and time again. They never think they’re out of a game.”
And they also have three hardcore veterans in Hawkins, Moore and Anthony Bowerman, which doesn’t hurt. All three scored in double digits in Middletown’s biggest game of the 2024-25 campaign.
Hawkins lit the fuse, sparking a 7-0 mini-run in the final 2:52 of the first half that allowed Middletown to close to a more manageable 35-26 halftime deficit.
After Moore sank a pair of free throws to make it 34-21, Hawkins energized a mostly quiet crowd to that point of the game with the first of his two huge dunks, this one with 2:14 remaining following a steal. About a minute later, Hawkins drove inside to score again, drew a foul and added the free throw to make it 34-26. Arroyo made one of two free throws before the half ended.
“He has a way of changing momentum, and it definitely changed right there,” Diehl said of Hawkins’ quick infusion of offense. “You could feel it.”
Middletown made some slight changes to its defense in the second half, according to Diehl, that seemed to bother the Dons as the third quarter opened, and the San Lorenzo team had also cooled off from the field by then.
The Mustangs kept chipping away at Arroyo’s lead, with baskets by Jasiah Pike (four points), Bowerman (11 points), Hawkins and Moore (14 points) closing the gap to 38-34. Bowerman was fouled with 2.7 seconds left in the quarter, putting the Mustangs in the bonus, and the senior responded by hitting the first of two free throws to make it 38-35 by quarter’s end.
Middletown fell behind by as man as six points twice in the fourth quarter before battling back to tie the game. Down 43-37, Bowerman sank two free throws and Hawkins put back a miss by a teammate to cut the lead to 43-41. And then it happened, nothing less than the play of the game and perhaps the play of Middletown’s season to this point.
Hawkins intercepted an Arroyo pass just short of midcourt, streaked down the court, went airborne just inside the free-throw line and slammed home a spectacular dunk to tie the game at 43-43, the gym rocking at that point as the packed house of mostly Middletown fans went nuts.
If that was a huge shot, Moore knocking down a corner 3-pointer with three minutes remaining, a shot that ripped through the net, was a close second. Middletown moved ahead to stay at 46-43.
“Bodhi really focused in on that,” Diehl said.
Arroyo cut it to 46-45 at the 1:47 mark, then Bowerman answered with a drive inside to make it 48-45. The Dons scored with 1:06 left to again make it a one-point game, and that’s where the score remained through a tense final 66 seconds.
Hawkins, Moore and Bowerman all making clutch baskets down the stretch pleased Diehl to no end.
“We are a good team, we’re not a one-man show,” Diehl said. “Tonight, we needed everyone to pull this off.”
Including two points, and the big deflection on defense in the final seconds, from sophomore Brown.
“I thought it was St. Helena (58-47 home win over St. Helena on Feb. 7), but this game beats that,” Diehl said when asked to rank the Arroyo win against the most exciting victories of his coaching career.
While Middletown’s offense, and particularly the two dunks by Hawkins, were a huge catalyst in the comeback win, Diehl said the Mustangs’ defense was every bit as responsible after holding Arroyo to 12 second-half points, including only three in the third quarter.
“We did a great job slowing them down in the second half,” Diehl said. “We played tough and didn’t give up many fouls. We made them work hard for their shots.”
Looking ahead to Mission San Jose (16-11), the team that eliminated St. Helena with a 60-43 first-round win Wednesday night, Diehl said the Mustangs need to “just keep going” and handle their own business. If they get past the Warriors, they’ll host a semifinal game next Wednesday against either No. 3 seed El Cerrito (22-7), another Division 2 team, or No. 11 seed St. Patrick-St. Vincent (12-14) of Vallejo, the No. 11 seed.
GAME NOTES: Bodhi Moore is up to 565 points this season, second all-time among Middletown boys. Only Tyler Hunt (618) scored more … The only Middletown boys team to win more game than the current-edition Mustangs was the 2005-06 squad that went 23-6. The 2015-16 Middletown girls also won 23 games.
