{"id":2240,"date":"2025-02-08T21:25:02","date_gmt":"2025-02-08T21:25:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/?p=2240"},"modified":"2025-02-08T21:25:02","modified_gmt":"2025-02-08T21:25:02","slug":"hawkins-drops-30-on-st-helena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/?p=2240","title":{"rendered":"Hawkins drops 30 on St. Helena"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Middletown boys beat Saints 58-47 to claim share of North Central League I lead<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brian Sumpter<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lake County Sports on Facebook<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MIDDLETOWN >> The Middletown Mustangs pulled a page out of their Sesame Street playbook on Friday night while beating the St. Helena Saints in a North Central League I varsity boys basketball game brought to you by the number 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Middletown\u2019s 58-47 win over St. Helena, the third meeting this season between the two teams but the Mustangs\u2019 first win, leaves the league race exactly where it was a few weeks ago, in a three-way tie, but this time with just one week left in the regular season. Middletown, Kelseyville and St. Helena are all 10-2 with two games remaining, and they don\u2019t play each other next week. Middletown closes with Upper Lake (4-8) and Clear Lake (6-6), Kelseyville has Cloverdale (4-8) and Fort Bragg (4-8), and St. Helena finishes with Fort Bragg and Upper Lake (4-8).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Saints erased as much as an 11-point deficit at one point to take a 40-37 lead at the end of the third quarter, the final period belonged to number 3, better known to Middletown head Jake Diehl and Mustangs fans as junior forward Jon Hawkins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hawkins owned the fourth quarter, and the Mustangs simply let him do his thing without reservation. He scored 11 of Middletown\u2019s 21 fourth-quarter points, including a three-point play with 4:06 remaining that put the Mustangs up 46-42. After a St. Helena turnover, Hawkins scored again down low, this time with 3:30 remaining, and after St. Helena missed a couple of shots, sophomore Cody Perez, called up to the varsity squad for the Saints, buried a big-time 3-pointer with 2:40 left, making it 51-42.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat was a huge shot,\u201d Diehl said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if the Saints hadn\u2019t had enough of the No. 3 by then, Hawkins\u2019 off-balanced shot with just more than a minute to play pretty much wrapped it up. He added two free throws, the final points of the game, to close out a 30-point night, both season and career bests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJon is such a team player, he cares so much about the team,\u201d Diehl said. \u201cI told him, \u2018If you get it (the ball) and think you can beat them, then go.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Diehl said it\u2019s unusual for him to let any one player freelance it like that, he said Hawkins was in such a zone that he let him take the Mustangs on his back down the stretch. And Hawkins\u2019 teammates, recognizing he was dealing with a hot hand against the Saints, obliged by getting him the ball as often as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hawkins also had 11 points, including a three-point play in the first quarter, and he added still another three-play in the second quarter, driving inside for the basket, drawing the foul and making the free throw to give the Mustangs 29-19 lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After losing two tight games to St. Helena earlier  this season, including a 62-60 league loss at St. Helena on Jan. 14, Diehl said it \u201cfelt great\u201d to finally get over the hump against the Saints, which was a must if Middletown wanted to keep its title hopes alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe knew we could do it after the first two times we played,\u201d Diehl said. \u201cWe had a lot of energy tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hawkins\u2019 big night was even more amazing, according to his coach, because he was at less than 100 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe wasn\u2019t feeling well,\u201d Diehl said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Middletown finally beat St. Helena despite going scoreless for almost eight minutes \u2013 the final 7:16 of the third quarter and nearly a minute into the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey got rattled in the third by the crowd and St. Helena\u2019s full-court pressure,\u201d Diehl said. \u201cBut we buckled down \u2026 I\u2019m just so proud of them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Middletown scored the first four points of the second half to go up 37-29, but didn\u2019t score again in the quarter. St. Helena took advantage, but not full advantage. While the Saints steadily closed the gap and finally took a 38-37 lead \u2013 their first lead of the game \u2013 on Charlie Garrett\u2019s putback of a teammate\u2019s miss with 32.8 seconds left in the quarter, the Saints also struggled at times to put the ball in the basket against Middletown\u2019s defense \u2013 St. Helena went scoreless from the 4:24 mark of the third until Michele Hanna hit two free throws with 1:14 left to cut Middletown\u2019s lead to 37-36.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur defense did a really good job,\u201d Diehl said, pointing to the Mustangs\u2019 17 team steals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Helena held a 42-39 lead early with 6:11 left in the game when Hawkins scored his first two points of the quarter to make it 42-41. Bodhi Moore (11 points) buried a shot Middletown\u2019s next time down the floor to put the Mustangs ahead, to stay as things turned out, at 43-42. Then it was No. 3 again and again, and again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anthony Bowerman added seven points in the win and Harrison Brown finished with six.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe like to think of ourselves as a snowball rolling downhill,\u201d Diehl said as the Mustangs enter the final week of the regular season. \u201cWe\u2019re picking up speed and getting bigger and stronger as we go. Hopefully we can continue to ride this momentum into next week.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Oliver led the Saints, now 20-3 overall, with 12 points while Xander Kelperis added 11, Hanna seven and Dean Sommer six.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Middletown is 18-6 overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JV game<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Helena defeated Middletown 65-53 in junior varsity action, eliminating Middletown (9-3, 16-7) from the league race as Kelseyville (12-0) defeated Clear Lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur first game without star sophomore Cody Perez (moved up to the varsity),\u201d Middletown head coach Andy Brown said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t shoot well enough in the field to win.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kolton Costlow\u2019s 14 points led the Mustangs. Nalu Johnson was right behind with 13 and John Finney had 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA hard-fought game that just didn\u2019t go our way,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Varsity game notes:<\/strong> With his 11 points on Friday, Middletown\u2019s Moore now has 500 for the season. The only other Middletown boy to score that many in a single season was Tyler Hunt (618) in 2007-08 \u2026 Middletown finished a solid fourth in the NCL I race last season behind co-champions Kelseyville and St. Helena and third-place Clear Lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Middletown Jon Hawkins (3) took the Mustangs on his back in the fourth quarter, scoring 11 of the team’s 21 points in a 58-47 league home win over St. Helena. (Photo by Brian Sumpter)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Middletown boys beat Saints 58-47 to claim share of North Central League I lead By Brian Sumpter Lake County Sports on Facebook MIDDLETOWN >> The Middletown Mustangs pulled a page out of their Sesame Street playbook on Friday night while beating the St. Helena Saints in a North Central League I varsity boys basketball game […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,12,19,59],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2243,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240\/revisions\/2243"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}