WINCHESTER — Winchester may not be Bel Air, California, but in the case of Dontrell McCreath, it was exactly what he was looking for.
Like actor Will Smith did in the ‘90s sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” McCreath moved hundreds of miles this summer to a new city in hopes of embracing a new culture.
And on Monday, McCreath, a Canadian exchange student from Toronto, Ontario, helped the Handley High School boys’ basketball team cruise to a 78-30 win over James Wood in Donald H. Shirley Gymnasium.
In the 48-point win, McCreath finished with nine points on 4-for-5 shooting and three steals, as the Judges (19-0, 6-0 Class 4 Northwestern District) remained perfect this season.
McCreath scored the first seven points of the night to help spur the Judges to a 14-0 lead to start the game.
Wood finished the first quarter on an 8-4 run to bring its deficit to 18-8 at the end of the first period.
That ended up being the closest the Colonels got the rest of the night, as Handley was a freight train that the Colonels (10-10, 2-6) couldn’t stop. The Judges proceeded to outscore Wood 28-12 in the second quarter, 24-6 in the third quarter and 8-4 in the final quarter.
Alongside McCreath, Will Braun-Duin finished with a game-high 16 points, all of which came in the second and third quarters.
Ten Judges ended up finding the bottom of the net. Christian Dinges notched 15 points, six rebounds and three steals. Kyren Oglesby finished with 11 points, four steals and three rebounds.
As a team, Handley shot 53.8 percent from the floor and held Wood to just 13 field goals.
McCreath, Handley’s starting point guard, previously attended Royal Crown School — a private high school in Toronto. The 6-foot junior said growing up and watching shows like “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” made him want to gain a first-hand experience in American culture.
“I grew up watching a lot of TV shows, and most of them were American shows,” McCreath said. “I just wanted to experience that, and going to school in America looked fun.”
Handley coach Zach Harrell-Zook said that McCreath’s ball-handling and willingness to play defense immediately stuck out when he first participated in fall workouts in August.
“I think that there was a vacancy on this team for just someone that wants to handle all the nitty-gritty of [guarding] 94 feet, bringing the ball up the floor, setting up the offense, guarding the other team’s point guard [and] playing full-court defense,” Harrell-Zook said. “Dontrell does so many things for us that never show up on the stat sheet.”
To Harrell-Zook’s point, McCreath said his defense is one of his biggest strengths as a player.
“I take a lot of pride in defense,” McCreath said. “When I got here, coach [Harrell-Zook] explained to me how — and also growing up watching college basketball — most collegiate point guards, most of them pick up the full 94 feet. So I took a lot of pride in that. I mean, I have the tools to play great defense. I have long arms, I’m fast, so I just take pride in that because when I lock up my defender, it just gives energy to the whole team knowing that I could lock up their best player.”
It was that type of defense from McCreath and the Judges that held Wood to its lowest point total of the season.
Harrell-Zook said the team watched the film from last week’s 31-point win over Skyline about an hour before getting on the bus to travel to James Wood. Among the talking points from that film review was the team’s defense.
“We just talked about that if we want to get to where we want to go, that we have to practice elite habits all the time,” Harrell-Zook said. “I think the guys took that pretty personal. We were really critical in that film. I think the guys took that personally and realized that it’s a humbling experience sometimes to watch the film and see the things that you’re doing.”
McCreath was quick to respond with the biggest difference he has found between playing basketball in Canada versus in Winchester.
“The Handley pride,” McCreath said. “Like the fans, cheerleaders, those are things that we don’t really have back home. Handley is a pretty historic school. There [are] a lot of roots here, and people take pride in that. There’s not much of that in Canada.”
Braun-Duin said the first day McCreath arrived in America in August, he picked him up to take him to FASST, where Braun-Duin has been training for years. Braun-Duin said he and McCreath “immediately clicked.”
“He was like, ‘What’s FASST,’ and I was like, ‘You’ll see,’” Braun-Duin recalled. “We just went to the basketball gym after that and got some shots up. It was a cool experience.”
Just like Braun-Duin mentioned, McCreath instantly gravitated toward the team and the Handley community.
“I kind of fit in right away,” McCreath said. “Everyone was pretty welcoming to me, and everyone’s pretty close. I just felt the connection. It was pretty easy adapting to the team. There’s a lot of great players on the team.”
As for the Colonels, Zach Woskobunik led the Colonels with seven points. Brodie Sirbaugh, Michael Bell and Ronnie Barrett each scored four.
James Wood coach Ben Bates thought Handley was clicking on all cylinders.
“I mean, we don’t have the firepower,” Bates said. “I know it’s like Groundhog Day with these same conversations. I mean, we don’t have the firepower to sustain these runs.”
While he wasn’t pleased with the outcome, Bates said his players must put the defeat behind them quickly ahead of their next game against Kettle Run on Friday.
“We’re already moving on right now,” Bates said. “I know it’s probably crazy to say, but I went in [the locker room after the game] and our conversation was for Kettle Run on Friday night. I mean, we have to forget tonight as quickly as we can.”
As the regular season wraps up, Handley will face arguably its toughest test yet when Spring Mills (Martinsburg, West Virginia) comes to town on Wednesday.
With hopes for a historic season, Braun-Duin and the Judges are dialed in on doing what no Handley team has done before.
“There’s a scary amount of excitement,” Braun-Duin said. “I mean, success is scary, and we all understand the realness of this. Handley [is a] 100-year-old school known as a basketball school, and we don’t even have a state championship, so that needs to change. We understand the expectation, we understand the pressure, but we just want to rise to the occasion.”
— Contact Justin Robertson at jrobertson@winchesterstar.com
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