Habersham Central High School’s varsity boys basketball team completed the feat of an undefeated regular season on its home court with an 82-44 victory over East Forsyth High School Friday night.
The Raiders finish the season 22-3 overall and 11-1 in Region 8-AAAAA. The only loss in region play came on January 17 in an away game against Winder-Barrow High School. The two traded wins, each coming on their own home court, this season and would be the other’s only loss in region play. Due to the tie-breaker in scoring, Winder-Barrow enters the region tournament as the No. 1 seed and HCHS gets No. 2.
That No. 2 spot means the Raiders will host Clarke Central High School on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. following the girls.
The Lady Raiders, who fell to East Forsyth Friday, will also be the No. 2 seed on their side and will host Apalachee High School at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
The Raiders are ranked No. 5 in Class 5A, according to Sandy’s Spiel. MaxPreps has them as No. 30 overall in the entire state regardless of classification and No. 9 in class 5A.
Friday night’s contest was a continuation of what HCHS has been able to do to opponents since that loss to Winder-Barrow. There’s been six-straight wins, including East Forsyth, with the closest game being a six-point road win over Loganville High School. The average margin of victory in the six wins – 25.7 points.
The win was tip-to-final-buzzer dominance by the Raiders, who were celebrating senior night.
HCHS held the Broncos to 10 points in the first quarter, garnering a 15-point lead in the period. In the second quarter, visitors put together their best offensive effort of the night, putting 20 points on the board while allowing 18 to the home squad.
With that 43-30 lead at the half, the Raiders came back out and didn’t allow a double-digit effort in either of the final two quarters from the Broncos. Both the third and fourth quarters saw East Forsyth only add seven in each frame to their total. The Raiders posted 23 and 16, respectively.
For HCHS, senior Enzo Combs notched a 25-point night. Jake Mihalick was the only other Raider in double digits with 12. On the night, 11 of 14 players on the roster scored points for HCHS.
The win notched an important mark for the seniors, who hit another milestone in addition to being undefeated on their home floor in 2024-25.
“These seniors have won more games than any (other class) that’s ever played here at Habersham Central. I think that says a lot,” HCHS Head Coach Tommy Yancey said. “Individual accomplishments are one thing – and we’ve got a lot of guys that have met those – but to be able to go out and win more games than anybody that’s ever came through and played before, that says something. There’s a lot of dedication and sacrifice that has to go in and pull something like that off.”
Having six consecutive wins, five of them lopsided victories, can cause a team to lose focus and potentially crash out of tournaments unexpectedly. Yancey said he doesn’t expect anything like that to happen in this case.
For the Raiders, Yancey said he keeps practice as competitive as possible to make sure they’re staying on their toes and putting in full effort.
“We tell our guys that, a lot of times, practice is going to be harder than some of the games you’re going to play in and, if you’re going to be good, that should be the case,” he said.
The head coach had his team in to practice on Sunday and Monday ahead of Tuesday’s game and said he was going to put them in as many game situations as possible.
HCHS’s home court advantage will play a huge part in the region tournament because, even after Tuesday, the Raiders will be hosting the semifinals and finals Thursday and Friday.
Then, assuming they make it to the championship game Friday night, the Raiders would host state playoff games as well.
“These guys set out a goal that they wanted to go undefeated at home this season. They accomplished the regular season part of it. Let’s hope we can stay undefeated the rest of the way at home. That will bode real well for us,” Yancey said.
The first step of that march to a region title starts Tuesday night at 6 p.m.
