By ALEX SPONSELLER The Bishop Hendricken basketball team held off visiting North Kingstown 64-59 in a heavyweight battle on Monday evening. It was a rematch of last year’s Division I Championship in which the Hawks also won.

The Hawks took the lead into the halftime break and led by as many as 11 points in the second half. The Skippers would cut into the lead and put Hendricken against the ropes in the final four minutes, but the Hawks defense held up to hold on for the win.

“It’s a great guage and test to see where you are as a team and this is a season like no other. Winter season is usually 16 weeks but this is going to be about seven weeks. It’s good to see where you are against an outstanding opponent, whenever North Kingtown and Hendricken get together it’s going to be a battle,” said Hendricken coach Jamal Gomes.

It was an unusual atmosphere in this early-season battle, as the gym was free of fans as it will be the remainder of the season. Gomes was proud of his team zeroing in on the goal and not needing the extra boost of energy on its home court.

“Different, it was different. We have been prepping our guys over the past few weeks, making sure they know that they’re going to have to be able to motivate yourself, that internal motivation because you aren't going to have those people in the stands. We knew going into the game that North Kingstown was going to come in ready to play and battle, we weren’t going to use not having fans there as an excuse win or lose,” said Gomes.

Leading the way was junior David Lynch with a game-high 26 points, followed by Justin Perez with 15 and Cam Hughes eight. Owen Moynihan led NK with 23 points scored in the loss.

“He’s going to be huge,” Gomes said of Lynch’s role moving forward. “He’s a multi-purpose player, can play pretty much any position. He’s a great kid and a great leader and that’s what made me the most proud. His leadership on the floor, holding kids accountable, reminding the young players what they had to do. That was outstanding.”

The Hawks improved to 2-0 on the season with the win, and were happy to get another victory over one of the state’s biggest powerhouses.

“I thought it was outstanding. Going into the season there was no scrimmaging, we only had one game under our belt, then we had a heavyweight bout with only one day to practice in between. Our goal was to play them as hard as we could, as smart as we could,” said Gomes. “In a normal season, at this point we have all of our plays and right now we only have about a quarter of that. Holding off North Kingstown on that run, it was really positive. We have a lot to improve on, but I was happy with our defense.”