Boys Basketball: Unionville shoots its way past Henderson

By Peter DiGiovanni
pdgiovanni07@gmail.com
@PeteDLN on Twitter

WEST CHESTER >> If Tuesday night’s nonleague matchup is any indication, then the Unionville boys basketball team may be a force in the Ches-Mont American Division race this season under first-year coach Chris Cowles.

The Indians (2-0) drained seven 3-pointers and used a very active zone defense to frustrate West Chester Henderson as the visitors pulled away for a wire-to-wire 47-33 victory.

Wyatt Hockenberry led all scorers with 13 points including four threes. Drew Lenkiatis added 12 points to go along with his eight rebounds and Bo Furey-Bastian had nine points and Pete Kucharczuk added six for the Indians.

“We have a lot of balance and guys who can shoot the basketball,” Hockenberry said. “Tonight, we got our energy from our defense and coach Cowles has a motto and it is ours. It is “Max-out” which means to bring energy the whole game. Even through there was not a big crowd here tonight, we had enough energy to win the game and we played good zone defense.”

Unionville broke out to a 23-15 halftime edge on the Warriors (0-2) as they shot just 12 for 46 from the field on the night. Henderson was led by Luke Weirman with a team-high 12 points, but the Warriors had trouble breaking through against the Indians’ 1-3-1 and 2-3 zone defenses.

The Warriors closed the Unionville lead to 23-17 late in the third period after Weirman drove the lane for a tough basket. But the Indians came back and opened up a 31-21 advantage after three. Lenkatis scored in tight at the end of the period to give the Indians an 10-point bulge.

“When we played Friday night, we got our energy from the big crowd,” Cowles said. “Tonight, we did not have that. We need to learn to create our own energy. We got points from a lot of guys and we have guys who can shoot the basketball, so I was happy with our balance.”

Unionville came out flying in the fourth as Kucharczuk drained a long three for a 34-21 lead. Brendan Gray came right back, driving the baseline for a Henderson bucket, and it was a 34-23 game.

Connor Ash then joined the three-ball party for Unionville as he hit a long bomb from the left side. Hockenberry drained his fourth three of the night to give Unionville a 40-23 advantage. After a Henderson turnover, Kucharczuk hit another three to give the Indians a 43-27 lead, and the cold-shooting Warriors could not come back.

“Unionville has a lot of tall, athletic kids that can shoot the ball,” West Chester Henderson coach Chris Bruno said. “But we had some positives tonight. We have a tight group that had success at the junior varsity level. It is going to take some time for them to have success at the varsity level.”