BHP Boys Hope To Continue Last Year’s Success

By Dennis Brunson

           hssr.com Associate Editor

           Honea Path – The Belton-Honea Path High School boys basketball team is trying to build off of a strong 2024-25 campaign. The Bears went 16-11 overall last season and won the Region 1-AAA championship with a 7-1 record. They also advanced to the quarterfinals of the state playoffs.

           BHP is off to a good start this season but, of course, it all remains to be seen.

           “In order for the Bears to repeat that success we are going to have to improve defensively as the season wears on,” said Belton-Honea Path head coach Russ Tysl, whose team opened with a 10-5 overall record and a 2-0 start in region play. “Currently BHP is giving up nearly 57 points per contest. Many nights we are bailed out by four players who are all averaging in double figures for scoring.

           “From a record standpoint this team is ahead of where we were at this point last year, however, there are some places defensively where we seem behind last season’s region championship team.”

           The usual starting lineup for BHP is senior 4-year letterman Marshall Bolden, senior 2-year letterman Dajaun Walker and junior T.L. Hanna transfer Zi Miller-Brown at the guard spots with senior 3-year letterman Jakyri Anderson and sophomore Eugene Robinson as the forwards.

           Robinson was leading the team in scoring with an 18.6 points-per-game average and in rebounding with a 5.6 average. Bolden was averaging 14.5 points while being the assists leader at 3.4.

           Miller Brown was leading the team in steals at 2.3 while scoring at an 11.6 clip and dealing out 2.9 assists. Walker was averaging 11.2 points.

           Anderson was averaging 8.6 points and 4.0 rebounds.

            Junior Pearson Summey is the first player off the bench. He is averaging 5.0 points and 2.8 rebounds. Tysl has three post players he makes good use of in 6-foot-3-inch senior Kanaza Bryant and sophomores Nick Sargent and Charlie Haynie, 6-5 and 6-4, respectively.

           “We tend to get much larger in the frontcourt when we sub Nick, Charlie or Kanaza into the lineup,” Tysl said.

           Like Sargent and Haynie, junior Cody Poole joined the varsity from the junior varsity. Junior Elijah Jackson came from Hanna with Miller Brown.

           Tysl hopes to solidify the Bears’ rotation coming down the homestretch of the regular season.

“We will also need to create more depth off the bench with a more reliable rotation from players 7-10,” he said.