CHARLOTTESVILLE — As the schedule has improved, Eastern Hancock is seeing it needs to improve, too.
For the first time this season, the Royals have lost two straight.
On Friday night, Eastern Hancock (13-3) dropped its first home game of the season, a 51-36 loss to Class A standout Morristown (15-4), which won for the fifth straight time against the Royals and fifth overall on the season.
On Tuesday, on the road, Eastern Hancock lost to Wapahani, a Class 2A sectional champion a year ago.
“Our competition level this week has been really good,” Eastern Hancock coach Aaron Spaulding said. “We’ve played two really good teams. I thought on Tuesday night we did not play well defensively (in an 87-66 loss). Tonight, I thought we defended better, but offensively our movement has to be better, our screens, our cutting. All that has to get better.”
On Friday, Morristown scored the game’s first eight points and led the rest of the way. Eastern Hancock did not get its first points until a Cole Rainbolt 3-pointer at the 3:12 mark of the first period.
The Yellow Jackets had a double-figure lead much of the night, including the entire fourth quarter.
Two free throws from Royals junior Landon O’Neal and a bucket off a turnover from sophomore Edric Miller cut the Morristown lead to 15-11 early in the second quarter, but the visitors followed with an 8-0 run.
A Rainbolt bucket late in the third quarter cut it to 38-30, but the Jackets answered with a 2-pointer from senior Sawyer Jones, who finished the game with seven points and eight rebounds, before the period ended.
“Earlier in the year we missed some games (due to quarantine) that would have really challenged us — New Pal, Northeastern — and I think would have been beneficial for us,” Spaulding said. “Now, we’re in a position where we’re playing really good teams and we’re going to have to step up our play to give ourselves a good chance to win.”
A veteran Morristown team was led by senior Kyle Crim who led all scorers with 21 points. The 6-1 guard also had 13 rebounds. Senior Drake Moore had 18 points. Both players were freshmen on the roster of the Yellow Jackets 2018 state championship team.
The 36-point performance was Eastern Hancock’s second lowest total of the season. It’s lowest came in a 69-30 loss — the first loss of the season — at Shenandoah on Jan. 23.
The Royals were just 5 of 24 (20.8 percent) from 3-point range. They are a 40 percent shooting team from downtown on the season.
“Over the last month, we’ve played some good teams, Shenandoah, Wapahani on Tuesday and Morristown tonight,” Spaulding added. “I thought defensively we got better tonight, a pretty good job against a good team. Our offense has to get better against really good teams. For the most part, we’ve been good on offense, but against good, big, physical guards we’ve struggled some.”
Sophomore guard Jacob Spaulding led Royals’ scorers with 10 points. O’Neal and Rainbolt each had eight and Miller scored. Silas Spaulding had three points. Drew White had a team-best five rebounds.
“This week we’ve come up to some adversity and this is what makes you better,” coach Spaulding added. “You feel really good about yourself when you win and things go great, but you really find things out about yourself when things go bad. You have to get after it to give yourself a chance.
“We’ve had a little adversity, got beat pretty good the last couple games and now we’ve got to see what we’re made of. Everybody can be in a good mood and be really happy when things go well. But who are you when things don’t go well?”
Spaulding’s Royals will have an opportunity right away on answering those questions.
They begin working on bettering their game tonight.
They are on the road at Heritage Christian, a .500 club with six of its seven wins over Class 3A schools.
