Back-to-back: Christian Heritage School’s Abernathy repeats as All-Area Player of the Year

Published 10:00 am Saturday, April 22, 2023

Every opposing team knows about Jax Abernathy now.

They still can’t stop him.

They couldn’t stop him from scoring nearly 30 points per game, and they couldn’t stop the Christian Heritage School Lions from rattling off 21 straight wins to start the 2022-23 season.

“He’s just a nightmare of a matchup in high school basketball,” Christian Heritage School head coach Tyler Watkins said of his 6-foot-4-inch star guard. “If you put a small kid on him, we’re going to see that and put him in the post and he’s really good with his back to the basket. Then, if you put a bigger guy on him, we’re going to put him in an isolation situation where (Abernathy) is going to go around him.”

“Everybody knows how talented he is, and that’s what I tell college coaches when they ask,” Watkins said. “Everybody tries to stop him, but no one has, since he’s been here to be honest.”

That’s been true since Abernathy’s freshman season, but his best season yet was his junior season.

“From different teams I’ll see different types of defense, whether that be a double-team or they try to deny me the ball,” Abernathy said. “I’m just confident in myself, where I know that I can get to my spot and score when I want to, and that’s just come from all the work I’ve put in. It gives me the confidence when I get in the games.”

All that work led to him being recognized after last season as the Dalton Daily Citizen’s All-Area Boys Basketball Player of the Year, and Abernathy is worthy of that recognition again. The Lions standout repeats as the Daily Citizen’s Player of the Year.

Abernathy’s consistent efficiency helps him lead the Lions without taking opportunities from his teammates. His 29.4 points per game this season came from 48% 3-point shooting and a lights-out 56% from inside the arc.

He grabbed 5.4 rebounds per game, tallied 3.6 steals per game and had 2.5 assists per contest, finding Cash Hare, Dontae Crowder and Braden Koneman for open shots.

“Every year, he really adds more pieces to his game. He’s improved and continued to develop, and that’s just him being coachable and his work ethic,” Watkins said. “One is obviously his mid-range game, pull-ups right and left and off the bounce, have really improved.”

One of those mid-range jump shots came in an important moment in what has become an annual showdown for the Lions in the last few seasons: when star-studded Hamilton Heights Christian Academy comes to town.

Abernathy shined against a roster led by Villanova University signee Jordann Dumont, and, with the Lions trailing by a point in the final seconds, he took a shot as the buzzer sounded.

Game. 53-52.

That shot kept a winning streak alive that lasted from the season opener until the final game of the regular season. That’s when the Lions ran into one of two teams that kept the season from being even more special than the already-great 23-3.

Greenforest Christian Academy, an eventual semifinalist in Class A Division II, ended the Lions’ streak, then downed Christian Heritage in the finals of the Region 7-A Division II tournament.

“We had a chance to win the first time we played, and we just couldn’t do it,” Abernathy said. “We had some tough competition this year, and we beat most of them.”

The loss in the region tournament sent a team that had two losses on the season into a second seed for the state playoffs. After an opening-round win, the Lions had to travel to Macon County, another semifinalist, that ended the stellar season for Christian Heritage after the second round.

The end of the season already has Abernathy wanting more for next year, in what will be his last season in a Lions uniform.

“As a team, winning the region championship is the goal to start out, and then to make a deeper run in the playoffs than we have the last two seasons,” he said.

After a run to the state Final Four in his freshman season, Abernathy and the Lions haven’t advanced past round two in the last two years.

This summer, as Abernathy competes in offseason and travel circuits, he hopes to gain a little more attention from college recruiters. He’s got an offer from NCAA Division II school University of Alabama-Huntsville, but he’s hunting for more.

“He wants to play at the highest level,” Watkins said. “I know he can play there, and he knows he can play there, and I think people are going to start to see that this summer. All coaches are looking for guys that can put the ball in the basket, and he’s one of the best in the state at doing that regardless of classification.”