AURORA | Calvin Kelley tried to light a fire under the Hinkley boys basketball team going into the fourth quarter of Tuesday night’s EMAC contest against Thornton and created plenty of spark.
After Kelley loudly chewed out his team on the bench between quarters — after which the Thunderbirds found themselves down by four points after they led by as many as 20 in the first half — Hinkley clawed back and scored the last seven points of the game to escape with a 61-57 victory.
Coming off the bench because it was Senior Night, junior Solomon Proctor scored nine of his game-high 19 points in the fourth quarter, including cashing in four straight free throws after a pair of Thornton technical fouls in the final 2:27, while seniors Kelsey Williams and Jorden Garcia added 17 and 11 points, respectively.
“Sometimes you have to just try to inject a little intensity into the guys,” Kelley said after his team improved to 10-12 overall and 6-2 in the EMAC.
“A few guys were getting lulled to sleep, but when they wake up, you can see we can be a pretty tough team,” he added.
Hinkley’s win lifted it into a share of third place in the EMAC standings with rival Aurora Central, which pays the T-Birds a visit on Friday. The winner of that game will finish the league standings behind current league leader Rangeview — 8-0 after a 106-48 steamrolling of Prairie View — and Northglenn, which downed the Trojans 58-53 Tuesday night.
Initially, it seemed Hinkley was in for a comfortable night against Thornton, which didn’t score a point until 3 minutes remained in the first quarter and managed its first field goal with 1:46 left.
The Thunderbirds’ lead crested at 20 points three times, the last at 29-9, only to see the Trojans go on a 19-4 run to end the half and trim the deficit to just five points at 33-28.
Chris Rojo scored the final six points of the third period for Thornton, which took a 46-42 lead going into the final quarter until Kelley’s emphatic message got through to Hinkley.
“We already knew what we had to do, but we just needed that fire put under us,” Proctor said with a smile. “Coach sure did do that.”
Proctor nailed a 3-pointer on the first possession of the fourth quarter to bring Hinkley within one and though the Trojans tried to pull away, missed free throws and technical fouls proved their undoing.
Leading scorer Dee Henderson picked up four fouls in the first half, but managed to avoid a fifth until he was called for a technical foul with 2:27 left. A minute later, officials also dinged Thornton head coach Davaughn Thornton with a technical with his team ahead 57-56.
Proctor made both sets of free throws from the technicals with a basket in between to give Hinkley the lead and Thornton’s Dre Winand — who finished with 16 points, but made just 2 of his 8 free throw attempts — missed a couple of free throws and then picked up his fifth foul seconds later.
Kenneth Powell and Garcia combined to make three free throws in the final 30 seconds to seal the victory.
“It definitely wasn’t the way you draw it up on the huddle,” Kelley said.
Courtney Oakes is Sports Editor of the Aurora Sentinel. Reach him at 303-750-7555 or sports@aurorasentinel.com. Twitter: @aurorasports. FB: Aurora Prep Sentinel
HINKLEY 61, THORNTON 57
Score by quarters:
Thornton 5 23 18 11 — 57
Hinkley 15 18 9 19 — 61
THORNTON (57)
Chris Rojo 2 2-3 7, Arik Ahluwalia 0 0-0 0, Ricky Griffin 1 2-4 4, Dee Henderson 6 2-5 17, Dre Weinand 7 2-8 16, Alex Perez 4 2-2 10, Marcus Garcia 0 3-5 3, Omar Esteves 0 0-0 0, Christian Jimenez 0 0-0 0. Totals 20 13-27 57.
HINKLEY (61)
Kelsey Williams 8 1-2 17, Damarje Brown 1 1-2 3, Ahonsi Ohimai 1 2-3 4, Jorden Garcia 4 3-4 11, Tysza Smith 3 0-1 6, Solomon Proctor 6 5-7 19, Kenneth Powell 0 1-4 1, Omari Walker 0 0-0 0. Totals 23 13-23 61.
3-point field goals — Thornton (4): Dee Henderson 3, Chris Rojo; Hinkley (2): Solomon Proctor 2. Total fouls — Thornton 19, Hinkley 20. Fouled out — Thornton: Henderson, Dre Weinand. Technical fouls — Thornton (2): Henderson, Coach.
