Men’s basketball players breaking records this season

By Aaron Heller

Two Hood College men’s basketball players shot into first place in the record books on Feb. 13. 

Graduate student Ryan Hollwedel became the team’s all-time winningest player. 

Hollwedel has been a part of the Blazers since the 2019-20 season. Hollwedel chose to take his talents to Hood College for many reasons.

 “It was a mix of being the right fit for basketball and academically it’s a good fit,” he said. “It’s also only 40 minutes from where I grew up, so it’s nice to be away from home but not too far.” 

In four years, Hollwedel has accumulated 71 total wins, and the Blazer’s 2023-24 season isn’t over yet. Throughout Hollwedel’s career, the team has had many standout wins, but the one that stands out to Hollwedel the most is the win against Eastern in 2022.

 “We beat Eastern for the 2022 conference championship and that was a first for our program,” he said. “It was awesome to play a role in that.” 

A second record was broken on Feb. 13 by junior guard Garrison Linton who recorded back-to-back triple-doubles. His performance accounts for two out of the three total triple-doubles in Hood College basketball history. Linton earned both of his triple-doubles by recording more than 10 points, rebounds and assists. 

“Just knowing my teammates have full trust in one another makes it easy to go out and play with confidence,” Linton said. 

Linton also tallied 14 total assists, the most single-game assists in Hood history. 

“I’ve been playing with a lot of these guys for a long time,” he said. “I know how they like to score so I try and put them in a position to make a play.”