What a season it was for the Hawks of Hayfield high school in Alexandria, VA, as they are coming off a title run in which they won the 2022 VHSL Boys State Championship – Class 6 over Battlefield and capping off a 32-0 record last year.
But when looking ahead to the upcoming season, it doesn’t look like Hayfield will be going anywhere any time soon, especially with the talent they have returning from a championship run last year. The Hawks did lose some key seniors from last year but they will be returning three key players from that championship team, including 2023 David King, 2023 Greg Jones, and 2023 DJ Holloway. And in speaking with Coach Carlos Poindexter, the Hawks have also added 2024 Jahleel Jackson from The Potomac School, a guard that already holds multiple offers, 2023 Donovan Bass, and 2024 Owen Pottenburgh from Tampa Bay.
Talking to coach, Hayfield will be deep once again and they understand that talks will be swirling about repeating this upcoming season but this team/program is just staying focused early on and taking it day by day.
“We are looking forward to getting back to it,” Coach Poindexter. We start pre-season training soon. Although we bring back three returning starters, this team will look much different than last year’s team. We will have to get the newcomers up to speed quickly as well as try and finalize our top guys. It is going to be a great competitive preseason and our open gyms and workouts are going to be high octane with a lot of guys trying to earn spots and rotations. Everyone is talking about us repeating and all that, but we are not thinking that far ahead. We are going to take it one day at a time and build this thing up, brick by brick until we open the season on December 1st. We will be a much deeper team this year than we were last year.”
As far as the player mentioned above, Hayfield will also have players like 2023 6’3 Andy Ramirez, 2023 6’3 Braelen Cage, 2024 6’1 Ryan Payne, 2023 6’3 Colin Souther, and 2024 6’2 Sean Burton as well who will all be key pieces for the Hawks.
The one question that everyone will be asking Coach Poindexter and his staff is how do they stay focused and keep their team level-headed/focused heading into the upcoming season'
“When we have our meeting with the players, we will be emphasizing last year’s success will not determine this year’s success,” he said. “As of today, the 2022 season is in the rearview and has been put to bed. The way we will keep their focus is by giving them different tasks and goals to reach throughout this process. Our number one goal they will be focusing on the next few months throughout the preseason is getting in the best shape possible and building our team chemistry.”