Small Rio Lindo academy making big strides in basketball

A small boarding school just outside Healdsburg is quietly building a hugely successful basketball program.

Rio Lindo Adventist Academy leads the Small School Bridge League with a 7-0 record, 14-1 overall, and is heading toward a potential league championship and playoff run.

Winning hasn’t been unusual for the 160-pupil school over the past five seasons, but league titles have hung just out of reach for the Spartans.

Coach Kevin Hardesty, who became head coach in the 2011-12 season, has taken what had been a largely sub-.500 program and molded it into a top-tier team each year since 2012. Since his second year, the Spartans are 43-11 in league play and 172-33 overall.

While they have qualified for the playoffs, they’ve never taken the league trophy, finishing second three times and third once coming into this season.

But this year looks to be different - and, Hardesty said, not just because he has a talented group of basketball players on his squad.

The coach and school hold student athletes to a higher standard than most.

Winning is great, but it isn’t nearly the most important lesson they are teaching.

In fact, four years ago the Spartans qualified for the playoffs but Hardesty declined the opportunity.

He felt the team didn’t have the proper attitude and shouldn’t be rewarded for it.

“The leaders just weren’t there,” he said. “We decided not to go. It lit a fire.

“The team didn’t want it.”

Senior Julien Boyd, a freshman that year, agreed: “Everyone wanted to try to do it by themselves.”

Boyd is one of three current seniors who were on that team, along with Koby Brown and Connor Santos.

“Koby and I came in and we were good, to where we could take the starting spot that year,” Boyd said. “The starters were getting a little upset. The team chemistry wasn’t there.”

Despite finishing 10-4, third in league, Hardesty said the team “fell apart as the season went on.

“Basketball is a long season. And this year, the team is getting closer and closer as the year goes on. I don’t think anyone wants the season to end,” he said.

This year, team leaders are truly leading.

“At the beginning of the year, the younger guys were scoring a lot more,” Hardesty said. “And the leaders were like, ‘OK.’”

In his four years, Boyd said each team had the potential to be as good as today’s, but it all seems to be gelling this year.

“Everybody is coming into their roles,” he said. “Like, ‘I know what I need to do tonight.’ Nobody is trying to do it by themselves.”

Boyd and Brown, best friends off the court, are the dynamic duo bringing the ball up the court, both lean 5-11 guards.

“Those two are like brothers,” Hardesty said. “Both came to Rio Lindo as 13-year-old boys, Koby from Las Vegas and Julien from Maryland … now they are inseparable. They are always positive.”

About that positivity: before games, some of the Spartan leaders can be seen chatting and having fun with opponents in the bleachers.

“They really set the foundation for the team, and are really good people,” their coach said. “Others tell us, ‘It’s so nice coming up to your school, everyone is relaxed.’”

Another way Hardesty has tried to foster an atmosphere of selfless service - one of the Adventist school’s spiritual tenets - is by not publishing individual statistics. He did for a while earlier this year, but numbers-chasing became a distraction.

For the record, though Brown might be the biggest offensive threat, the scoring is spread around. Four players are averaging in double figures: Brown, Boyd, DJ Lopez and Ruben Valce. Hardesty said sophomores Joel Casillas and Jonathan Cooke have become strong contributors.

As a boarding school, where students and staff live on campus, teammates become uncommonly close.

“We practice at night when the dorm has study halls,” Hardesty said. “We have our study hall together. We work in the gym; they clean the gym. We see a lot of each other. It’s a family.”

In their four years together, Brown and Boyd have grown as close as brothers and have quietly modeled good leadership for the underclassmen.

“We owe a lot to those two,” Hardesty said. “They are such hard workers, very coachable. It sets the standards for everyone below them. Since this is their fourth year, younger kids only know what it’s like to be coachable.”

With three more league games left, all against weaker teams, the Spartans are hopeful for a long playoff run.

An important victory last year against a Division 4 school boosted the smaller D5 school’s confidence.

In an early season tournament, the Spartans were down by 16 points to Loma Linda Academy in the Pacific Union Tournament.

But they battled back and took the lead with 30 seconds left and won, 49-48.

“That was probably the biggest win in our history, a defining moment,” Hardesty said. “There were almost 1,000 people in the gym, all cheering for us because we were the underdog. We chipped away and came out on top.

“That set the tone that we’re here to be a team that’s not to be messed with.”

You can reach Lori A. Carter at 707-521-5470 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @loriacarter.