Midway through the third period of a lopsided contest, Mount Vernon’s Jesse Konadu already had 22 points. The entire Hayfield squad had just 20. It was that kind of a night for the Hawks, who turned in a disappointing effort on senior night, falling to the Majors, 68-52 at home on Monday night.
The Hawks had high hopes entering the game, as they’d played perhaps their best game of the season in beating the Majors on their home court last month. But the two teams have drifted in opposite directions since that affair, with Hayfield dropping five of their last seven to fall to 4-17 (3-10), while Mount Vernon has reeled off six of their last seven to improve to 13-6 (10-3).
“We were our own worst enemy,” said Hayfield Coach Ron Palmer after the game. “We made some many unforced turnovers that we would have lost the game even if Konadu wasn’t playing.”
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The Majors looked determined to avenge the earlier loss from the start, holding the Hawks to just seven points in each of the first two quarters. Jesse Konadu, Mount Vernon’s standout senior guard who averages 21 points per game, scored early and often from seemingly everywhere but the concession stands.
“We just didn’t come out with the same intensity as last time,” said junior forward Nate McShay, who turned in a strong 19-point performance on an otherwise grim night. “We have a lot of good athletes, we just didn’t play together as a team. We came out slow, tired in the legs, I guess.”
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Mount Vernon broke open the game with a 13-3 run to start the second quarter, which staked them to a 24-10 lead that they would never relinquish. The Majors pressure defense caused numerous turnovers as the lead bulged to 25 by the third period. As Konadu came out of the game in the third quarter with 22 points, after the result was no longer in doubt, Hayfield finally outscored him late in the period, but still trailed his team by 23.
With just twenty seconds left and the contest far out of reach, Cory Spera, a senior forward, dove for a loose ball, and deftly flung it at a Mount Vernon defender, forcing a turnover but more importantly showing that he was prepared to fight until the final whistle.
“He plays 100 percent every game, all season long,” Palmer said. “He gives you the effort, but you have to have seven or eight more guys giving the effort, and we don’t have that. If we’re going to lose, let’s make it a top effort and it certainly wasn’t one of those. It was senior night so you would expect a better effort from the team.”
Palmer believes his team needs to step it up if it has a chance of advancing in the playoffs.
“Missed layups, missed free throws, turnovers, you can’t win like that,” he said. “That’s how its been most of the year. We are very dismal right now. We’ve put ourselves in a position where we’re going to be playing on the road against the top teams in the district- so it isn’t going to be easy for us.”
Palmer’s charges have one more regular season contest, on Thursday night at Jeb Stuart, to right their ship before playoff time.
