Last year’s role players are this year’s stars. Henry Clay ready to make some noise.
Almost every high school basketball team has to deal with some attrition year over year as standout players graduate.
But Henry Clay boys’ coach Daniel Brown has never experienced losing his entire starting five and the first guy off the bench from the year before — never mind one of those guys being the program’s all-time leading scorer.
Though this year’s Blue Devils (6-3) got off to a rocky start, Brown sees the team coming together surprisingly quickly despite having no summer ball, a short preseason and a COVID-19 stoppage over the last two weeks.
“I’m fortunate. I’m at a school like Henry Clay where we’re able to produce nice players, so that’s just a credit to our program developing these young kids. And then they take the mentality: ‘Next man up,’ Brown said. “They went from being role players to players we depend on.”
Aziel Blackwell helped lead Henry Clay to a 76-73 win over Somerset on Thursday, scoring 27 points including four three-pointers. Two of those threes helped steady the Devils late in the first period after they fell behind 21-14.
“We needed this game for sure to test our toughness,” said Blackwell, a 6-foot-1 senior who’s averaging better than 20 points per game this season. “You’ve got to play as a team. You can’t do anything by yourself. This was a team effort and everybody came to play, and we came out with the win.”
A few mistakes in the first half meant the Henry Clay players got an earful from Brown, whose pleas and admonitions could be heard clearly in the quieter, attendance-restricted gym. The players responded.
“This team is really coachable,” Brown said. “The guys that gave us minutes (last year) — Blackwell, (Kanye) Henderson and (Darik) Holman gave us a good nucleus. … We feel like we can play with anybody.”
Henderson, a 6-1 junior, scored 18 points including four straight free throws to help seal the game in the final minute. Holman, a 6-2 senior, provided a solid post presence with 16 points and nine rebounds.. Five of those boards came on the offensive end.
Another senior, Harrison Lynch, provided a key outlet for Henry Clay’s attack of Somerset’s full-court press in the fourth period. Lynch scored 10 points, including a pair of layups against the Briar Jumpers’ attempts to trap Henry Clay in the back court.
Blackwell said his teammates learned a lot practicing with the likes of Marques Warrick and the Blue Devils’ other team leaders last season. And they’re inspired by Warrick’s exceptional play this year for Northern Kentucky University.
“We’ve just got to keep getting tougher as a team,” Blackwell said. “Defense is our main focus, so we’ve just got to keep doing it together. And once we get the defense together then everything (else) comes.”
Blackwell scored 10 points in a tight fourth quarter — eight of those came at the free throw line. He scored the other two on a putback of a missed free throw with the Blue Devils clinging to a 66-63 lead with 1:31 to go. Blackwell split two Somerset players to get the ball.
“AZ has really put the time in and it’s showing,” Brown said. “Colleges are going to start noticing. Right now, he’s on everybody’s radar. Now, (opponents) know they have to defend him and he can do it in different ways. I think that’s what makes him tough.”
Henry Clay was originally scheduled to play city rival Paul Laurence Dunbar on Thursday, but the Bulldogs are observing their second COVID-19 isolation period of the season. Henry Clay defeated Shelby County on Tuesday in its first game back from its own quarantine.
The Somerset (10-3) game came as a last-minute filler with the Briar Jumpers, no doubt, looking for another good game ahead of the All “A” Classic later this month. Somerset is ranked among the top teams in the 12th Region according to Dave Cantrall. The Briar Jumpers had three players each score 19 points — Kade Grundy, Gavin Stevens and Dylan Burton.
“We needed a test like that,” Brown said. “This time of year, everything’s an impromptu schedule. I tell our boosters, “We’re week to week. Sometimes we’re day-to-day.”
The Blue Devils have three more games before a back-to-back showdown with 42nd District favorite Frederick Douglass on Feb. 12 and 16. No. 2 Lexington Catholic visits Feb. 26 and the Blue Devils host No. 4 Clark County on March 4.
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