With a 81-35 victory at St. Stephens on Tuesday night, Hickory head coach Andy Poplin (with ball) reached 350 career coaching wins in prep basketball. He added another on Thursday night when the Red Tornadoes beat McDowell 73-47 in Hickory and his record at HHS is 151-37 in seven years and his career record is 351-177./HICKORY PUBLIC SCHOOLS PHOTO
HobbsDailyReport.com
HICKORY – Hickory High boys’ varsity basketball coach Andy Poplin has reached 350 career victories.
His 151st in his seventh season at HHS came Thursday, a 73-47 home win over McDowell that was the Red Tornadoes’ fifth straight victory.
Poplin’s 350th career win came Tuesday at St. Stephens, an 81-35 win in a Northwestern 3A-4A game. The Red Tornadoes are 15-3 overall and 5-2 in the conference heading into Tuesday’s night game at first-place Freedom.
Poplin is 151-37 and in his seventh season as head coach at Hickory. His career record is 351-177.
Hired as HHS’ head coach in April of 2013, Poplin is a Lenoir-Rhyne University graduate who was also a prep head basketball coach at Mount Pleasant and Concord in Cabarrus County.
He coached at Mount Pleasant from 1994-2003 with his teams going 117-108, then was head coach at Concord for four years. At Concord, his 2005-06 team went 25-6 and lost in the West 3A Regional final, and the next year’s team went 27-4 and won a state 3A title.
His coaching resume also includes a stint as an assistant at College Park Middle School (1989-92) and he was a varsity assistant at West Caldwell in 1992-93.
Cody Young has become a 1,000-point scorer in varsity boys’ basketball for Hickory High./HICKORY PUBLIC SCHOOLS PHOTO
Young clears 1,000 career points
Hickory’s Cody Young cleared 1,000 career points in the victory over McDowell.
Also a Red Tornadoes football star, Young is a second generation sports star at HHS. His dad, Al, is in the Catawba County Sports Hall of Fame after playing college basketball at Virginia Tech and, as a football star, was drafted by the NFL’s New York Giants without having played any college football.