Newton-Conover High’s Chyna Cornwell, a junior, is already a dominant player. But her head coach, Sylvia White, says Cornwell’s best basketball is ahead of her, predicting she will be at the top of her game as a junior in college./MICHELLE THOMPSON PHOTO
By CHRIS HOBBS
HobbsDailyReport.com
Thoughts and observations from the South Fork 2A basketball tournament championship games on Friday night at Lincolnton, and the season so far:
Just scary good
If Newton-Conover High head coach Sylvia White is correct – and she knows her basketball – this is just simply scary for players hoping to defend the Red Devils’ Chyna Cornwell.
Cornwell had 32 points and 28 rebounds as top-seeded Newton-Conover beat second-seeded Bandys 66-53 for a 22nd straight win and a league crown after finishing six games ahead of Bandys and Lincolnton in the regular season race.
White — who is in her third tenure as head coach at Newton-Conover and also was head coach at Mars Hill University – said Cornwell, a 6-foot-3 junior, probably won’t play her best basketball for another four years.
“I’m glad I don’t have to stop her,” White said after picking up career (prep) win No. 168. “The thing is Chyna continues to grow with her game.
“I think she is going to keep getting better. Her best basketball is probably coming when she is a junior in college.”
It’s hard, even for White – and I have been around girls’ basketball in the area for nearly 50 years – to put a finger on who she most reminds you of.
As White and I discussed postgame, she has elements of her game that are familiar with Schonna Banner, the West Caldwell star who went on to play at South Carolina, and bits of her game (the strength a few feet from the basket) of Beverly Greenard, who led Bandys to multiple state championships.
Cornwell played middle school basketball and is in her third year on the Newton-Conover varsity, already having reached more than 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds in her career.
On Friday night, Bandys had a 24-15 lead after a 10-2 run and was – for the most part – containing Cornwell by double or triple-teaming her.
But when Cornwell got the ball, often a few feet from the basket, she helped ignite a 14-0 run that left the Red Devils in front 29-24 at the half.
After that, the Trojans got no closer than six (51-45 with six minutes, 22 seconds to play) and Cornwell dominated. She had 15 rebounds in the fourth quarter alone.
“When I started with Chyna, she had very strong athletic ability but didn’t know how to make it fit,” White said. “She’s not necessarily a better athlete (now), but we all fit together … it’s not just one (effective) but five.”
As her ‘feel’ for the game grows, Cornwell will get even better. Her work ethic, White said, assures that.
White said Cornwell is up at 4 a.m. each day to work out, and her junior season has already included practicing in Lemon Gym with ACC coaches having flown into Newton just to watch.
“She’s a combination of some of the best of those kids,” White said, referring to previous notable stars in the Greater Hickory area. “She has quickness, athleticism and strength. She’s the best I have coached athletically.”
Again, that is a scary thought.
She made 13 of her 18 field goals against Bandys on Friday night and she is as good a ‘closer’ with the ball within 5 feet of the basket as I have seen in many years.
Her ability and attitude at the boards is as tenacious as I have seen in many years, second probably only to a Toni Steed, an unsung hero on state title teams at West Caldwell who played alongside Banner. If she wanted a rebound, Steed — who couldn’t have been any taller than 5-9 as I remember — would get one.
Tough horse(s) to ride
Top-seeded East Lincoln’s boys probably could not have hammered third-seeded Newton-Conover any more than they did in a 79-34 win at Lincolnton.
The Mustangs are … well, just electric in the way they go about things under head coach Jon Hancock. They can shoot 3s – and lots of them – and they pound the boards and you can tell they have dominating on their minds via watching them play.
Sidney Dollar (4), with East Lincoln High assistant coach Chip Ashley (left) and head coach Jon Hancock (right), has led the Mustangs back to the state 2A playoffs. They face No. 32 North Surry at East Lincoln on Tuesday night in a first round game./EAST LINCOLN HIGH PHOTO
“We just wanna keep doing what we do,” Hancock said. “We want to find a way to get a little better each day.
“We’re preaching hard every day about good habits. That’s what takes over.”
East Lincoln has had an excellent run of athletes over the past decade or so (and longer really), and has a solid group this season that produces a lineup that could have anywhere to as many as five or six players capable of 30-point nights.
And on top of that, to keep Hancock at his happiest, they play defense.
“We shot it good and our defense was special,” Hancock said after the title game. “They (the Red Devils) had a hard time doing anything against us offensively.”
Sidney Dollar, a 6-foot-5 senior, and Myles Adam rained a couple of 3-pointers on the Red Devils, and when Newton-Conover went four minutes without a field goal it was virtually already over with East Lincoln up 39-16 even before halftime.
Hancock said that was a good sign, part of what he thinks the Mustangs must do if they want to contend for a state 2A title.
“We had a lull (recently) when we were not playing with passion,” he said. “Maybe things were coming too easy.”
The league race ended up going to the wire – it took a Lincolnton win over Maiden on the final night of the regular season for East Lincoln to repeat (by one game) as the South Fork regular season champion.
East Lincoln won 25 games in Hancock’s first season there (last year) and fell to eventual state 2A champion Forest Hills.
That postseason experience has Hancock confident his team will play well, starting on Tuesday night with a first-round home game against No. 32 North Surry. The Mustangs are the top seed in the West 2A bracket.
“They’ve been is so many big games … and we’ll try to do that again,” Hancock said.
The right choice
With Dollar playing so well for East Lincoln this season, when South Fork 2A head coaches voted for Player of the Year they had to consider that Dollar led a league champion and the other top candidate, Kris Robinson of Lincolnton, played on a 10-14 team that finished fifth.
Robinson, a 6-3 junior guard, had games of 57 and 52 points – and in the games I saw – was in my mind the best player in the conference.
Two to watch
TADLOCK
LOGAN DUTKA
Saw the East Lincoln at Bandys girls’ conference tournament semifinal, won 76-68 in double overtime by the Trojans at Bandys, and was impressed by junior Brianna Tadlock of the Mustangs and Bandys freshman Logan Dutka.
Tadlock is/was almost automatic at the free-throw line and had a 40-point game in one of the toughest gyms to play in.
Dutka — the daughter of Bandys’ boys head basketball coach Adam Dutka — is keenly aware with good fundamentals for a ninth-grader.
She reminds me of several former Trojans stars at this point in her prep basketball career skill-wise and has a nice shot.
Logan Dutka has had some high-scoring games and some this season where she scored only a few points and seems to have that age appropriate outlook.
After she’d scored 26 points and hit some I’m-open-so-I’m-shootin’ key shots, she was asked about head coach Nicki Sigmon saying her team (16-8) never makes things easy.
“More fun that way,” Logan Dutka quickly said.
HobbsDailyReport.com owner Chris Hobbs is covering Greater Hickory area prep basketball for the 43rd consecutive season and has been watching the games, first as a high school student, for nearly 50 years.
