Bulldogs wake up to handle HVA
BEARDEN — Going into Friday night’s home game against district foe Hardin Valley Academy, Bearden’s boys team badly needed a win to stay in the District 4-4A mix.
Down one at half, the Bulldogs used a commanding second half to pull away for a 55-37 win — the league-leading Hawks’ first 4-4A loss — as the Dawgs improved to 14-7 overall, 2-3 in district Jan. 20.
“We were worried about our leading scorer (Jake Poole) not playing,” BHS head coach Jeremy Parrott said. “... At half I thought ‘we gotta change the tempo a little bit … slow them down, speed us up.’ It turned into some offense for us.”
Justin Nordin, BHS freshman guard, led all scorers with 16. Senior guard Nelson Karnowski added 11.
“We hustled more, shots started going in,” Karnowski said. “We started playing more defense, started listening to the coach.”
“He played really well,” Parrott said about Karnowski.
Senior wing Hakeem Rashid scored 12 for HVA (19-4, 4-1) while post Jack Smith got 11.
“I thought their physicality wore us down,” HVA head coach Andrew Arendt said.
“I thought that affected rotations and I thought we got tired.”
