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Sports

Hinkson Finds Salvation at Salve

Former Fitch Shooting Star Carries Team To NCAAs

Windell Hinkson was a shooting star too often outshone in an ECC basketball galaxy when he played at Fitch High from 2005 to 2007.

Todd Doyle was the ’05 Fitch All-State star when Hinkson was a sophomore. Tony Patterson, a 19-point-a-game scorer who went on to play Division I college football, was top gun in 2006. When Hinkson was scoring 18 points a game as a senior, he shared publicity with perhaps the greatest collection of ECC hoop talent assembled at once.

Hinkson played AAU ball for a team called BANG in New London with NL’s Alan Chaney (Florida), Killingly’s Shane Gibson (Sacred Heart), NFA’s R.J. Evans (Holy Cross) and Stonington ’s Kevin Donahue (Assumption).

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They all landed scholarships, All-State distinction and All-Area plaudits. Hinkson was snubbed as an ECC Large honorable mention as a senior. The timing was never right for him to shine.

In the past week, though, Hinkson's star has never shone brighter. The 5-foot-11 guard surpassed 1,000 career points in three years of play at Salve Regina. He carried his team, a regular season fifth-place squad, to only its second NCAA Division III Tournament in school history by winning three conference tourney games against higher seeds.

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All Hinkson did was score 27 points in the quarters, 39 to knock off regular season champ Ana Maria in the semis and toss in 23 to beat Wentworth Institute in The Commonwealth Coast Conference finals.

Hinkson's personal salvation at Salve has finally come.

"It's been a long, rocky road to get to this point," Hinkson said. Salve (17-10) was 4-21 last season when he was injured. "It's one of the greatest feelings in my life."

Hinkson has one more season of eligibility even though he is scheduled to graduate in spring. He's mulling his options whether to return for a graduate work and finish his fourth basketball season. He received one of Salve Regina's three minority scholarships out of Fitch, the endowment does not cover graduate courses.

Salve Regina's season ended in the first round in an 89-67 loss to Western Connecticut last night. Hinkson scored nine points, and fellow Fitch grad Josh Hohlfelder, a Salve freshman forward, added eight off the bench. If it is Hinkson's last game, Salve's improbable NCAA bid caps his wildly successful college experience. And he can thank a Fitch and Salve grad, Alick Furtick, for helping it happen.

Furtick, a Fitch assistant in '96 and Hinkson's AAU coach at BANG, became a Salve assistant a year later. His first major recruit was Hinkson, who called his college choice "a no-brainer."

"The first phone call I made was to Windell," Furtick said. "It was one call, one visit, one five-minute conversation. I'm grateful he trusted me. He's had a great career here, a man against boys this year. It's been an excellent fit. For someone who didn't even make the All-ECC Large team somehow, he's had four years of on-the-court memories as a pure scorer."

The excellent fit was finding the right size of school and division to play instead of reaching for a highest level and as Furtick says, "waving a towel" at the end of the bench. Salve has given Hinkson, an 18-point a game scorer this year, a green light to launch from 3-point land, where he hits 36 percent of his shots.

"Windell has no conscience," Furtick said. "It doesn't matter if we're up 20 or down 20, he wants the ball in his hands. He's won a couple of games with buzzer beaters, but his real legacy here will be him carrying us on his back to the NCAAs."

And now Hinkson is on Cloud Nine in the basketball galaxy of stars, overshadowed by no one. The small college March Madness begins this weekend.

"I want to thank coach Sean Foster and Alick for believing in me and giving me the green light to do what I do best - shoot the ball," Hinkson said. "I love playing here. Hopefully I can keep it going for a while."

 

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