VISALIA – For the first time in his illustrious career, Tulare Union boys basketball head coach Mark Hatton can call himself the champion of the Polly Wilhelmsen Tournament.
In the championship game of the 74th Polly Wilhelmsen Tournament this past Saturday, Dec. 27, the Tulare Union Tribe held off the Kingsburg Vikings 54-49 to win the tournament title. As his team won their first Polly Wilhelmsen Tournament in over 50 years, Hatton finally won the tournament on the court of his alma mater Mt. Whitney High School.
“I’ve been chasing this thing since I was 16 so it’s finally time that the beast was slain,” Hatton said. “And for the kids to accomplish that, it’s just something nobody will ever be able to take away from them.”
And that was not the only milestone that Hatton reached during the 74th Polly Wilhelmsen. In the team’s tournament quarterfinal game against Frontier on Dec. 23, Hatton became the all-time winningest coach in the Central Section with the Tribe’s 72-45 win over Frontier. As he surpassed his friend Brad Felder, who last coached for Hanford in 2023, Hatton was honored to be in the same conversation.
“When you pass somebody like that, it means something,” Hatton said. “He’s just one of those guys that was really good for basketball so if I can do that for my kids like he did for his kids, then that’s what I’m trying to do.”
After winning the next two games to win the tournament, Hatton has pushed his record to 581 career wins in the Central Section. And the Tribe had to earn those next two wins, as they first survived Sanger 62-59 in the semifinals and then Kingsburg 54-49 in the championship game. As they closed out those wins to get the tournament title, point guard Brayden Stevenson believes those results demonstrate the Tribe’s resolve.
“We just stay with our composure,” Stevenson said. “We just got to bring each other up, we can’t go down and we just got to handle the game in our hands.”
And it was a team effort in the championship game against Kingsburg. Guard Demaje Riley led the Tribe with 14 points in the victory while Keanu Kennedy scored 10 points and Stevenson and forward Shauntai Kimble both contributed 9 points.
The Tribe got rolling early against the Vikings, taking a 22-11 lead early in the second quarter. Six players scored for the Tribe during this stretch, including Kennedy with 6 points. But the Vikings did not relent as they came back to make it a 26-22 Tribe lead heading into halftime. Kingsburg forward Jensen Hirschkorn got rolling with 6 points during this run.
The third quarter followed a similar pattern. The Tribe started hot to stretch the lead to 32-22, but the Vikings responded to cut the deficit to 36-34. And again, the Tribe responded with a run of their own to push their lead to 45-37 to end the third quarter.
“Basketball is a game of runs,” Stevenson said about the back-and-forth game. “They had a run and then it was our turn so we had to keep it going.”
The Vikings continued to battle in the fourth quarter, and even cut the deficit to 50-47 with about 2 minutes left in the game. As the Tribe needed a big play to retake control, Riley missed a 3-pointer but rebounded his own miss and then put it back for the layup. And thanks to some free throws down the stretch, the Tribe closed it out for the victory to improve to 15-1 this season.
With the loss, the Kingsburg Vikings dropped to 13-3 on the year. Hirschkorn led the Vikings with 17 points while guard Alex Hanzak scored 11 points in the losing effort. While his team did not shoot the ball as well as he would’ve liked, Kingsburg head coach Philip Bergstrom commended his team for winning many close games in the tournament and playing tough against the Tulare Union Tribe.
“I just liked seeing us kind of figure out different ways to come back in some games,” Bergstrom said. “And stick around with a really great Tulare Union team.”
Both teams saw players honored for their play throughout the tournament. Stevenson was named the MVP of the tournament while he, Riley, Kennedy and Hirschkorn were named to the All-Tournament Team. Central Valley Christian’s Grant Hyde also earned All-Tournament Team honors.
With the Polly now over, both teams go on hiatus until after the new year. As the Tribe look ahead to their January schedule, and the beginning of their season in the West Yosemite League, they hope this tournament championship gives them a boost.
“I feel like when we play people, they’re gonna know that we won the Polly,” Stevenson said. “They’re gonna try to come out hard and we’re gonna come out harder.”
