Meet the 3 sisters who help make Rock Hill basketball the team to beat in SC
One of Kenyatta Hankerson’s favorite moments as a mother came in a game a few weeks ago, when her three daughters on the Rock Hill High School girls basketball team came together at the free-throw line and shared a hug.
At least, that’s what Mom thought she saw.
“Alyssa was struggling in the game, and she went up and got an and-one,” Hankerson said. “From the stands, it looked like Laila hugged Alyssa at the free-throw line. And then I saw Alana come through and get in the mix.”
The mother then chuckled: “They say this isn’t what really happened.”
The three daughters — Laila (a junior), Alana and Alyssa Hankerson (both freshmen) — laughed and shook their heads in unison upon hearing their mom’s account of the story.
What really happened was a bit more goofy — a bit more on-the-nose for the giggly best friends yet tenacious teammates who have helped push the Bearcats to a Region 4-5A championship, a top ranking in South Carolina 5A basketball and a No. 1 seed in the state playoffs that begin later this week.
What really happened, simply, was a high-five that went wrong.
“Laila smacked me in the face and hugged me to apologize,” Alyssa said.
“A hug did occur, yes,” Laila said, mid-laugh, “but not before all that.”
A missed high-five aside, pretty much everything else about 2021-22 — for the Hankerson sisters and the Bearcats — has been picture-perfect.
The Hankerson sisters are three players in a deep and talented rotation for top-ranked Rock Hill: Senior Jada Jones is the team’s starting point guard and was an All-State selection last year. Senior Gracie Wilson is a knockdown shooter and a perennial All-Region selection. Senior Makayla Street signed to play college basketball at Brevard. (There are others, too. After all, eight players have been the leading scorer in a game for Rock Hill High this year. Eight.)
But the Hankersons are an invaluable three nonetheless.
And they all bring something different to the team.
Hankersons looking up to Laila
“So you got Laila, the superb athlete who can score on three different levels, play defense and do everything,” Rock Hill head coach Kenny Orr told The Herald. “Then you got Alyssa. We call her Sniper. She can shoot it, and that’s what she loves to do. Can she do the other stuff? Yes. But her forte is shooting.
“And then you got Alana. We call her Baby Girl. She’s my Swiss Army knife. She loves to facilitate. If you need her to score, she can score. If you need her to shoot, she can shoot. But she’d rather be the one who is the maestro. The conductor. She’s the one who is going to make sure that all the pieces are in place.”
Laila, Alana and Alyssa grew up in south Charlotte. They were born into an athletic family.
Their father, Freeman, ran track and field at N.C. State in the 1990s. And their mother, Kenyatta (maiden name Williams), played basketball under legendary Wolfpack coach Kay Yow.
The three weren’t always destined to be hoopers. Their mother, in fact, at first didn’t want them to play basketball and be entangled in the highs and lows of the game, the unending training that often comes at the expense of other life experiences.
But Laila wanted to be like her mother. She began playing when she was 8, and after a few difficult years, she found herself being a contributor on Charlotte Country Day’s varsity team in the ninth grade.
As for Alana and Alyssa? They’d shoot on the side baskets while their big sister was going though practice on the main court. They’ve always wanted to be like Laila, they said.
“Ever since I was little, they would just follow everything I did,” Laila said. (That meant taking an interest in basketball, yes, but also following her lead with other stuff, like swimming and getting their ears pierced.)
“It was because we thought you were cool,” Alana said.
Said Laila: “I am cool!”
Hankerson sisters play with ‘telepathy’
The three moved to Rock Hill in the 2020 offseason. In 2021, with Laila as a sophomore and Alana and Alyssa as eighth-graders, they each contributed on a Rock Hill team that made the Upper State title game before falling to eventual state champion Clover.
And they’ve each made huge leaps this year.
Laila heads into this year’s playoffs averaging 14.7 points, 4.4 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 3.8 steals per game. Alyssa has a similar line: 14.2 points (72 3-pointers), 2.3 rebounds, 1.9 assists. And Alana is averaging 7.6 points, 3.8 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 2.9 steals and is shooting 75% from the free-throw line.
On Tuesday, Laila was named Region 4-5A Player of the Year. Alyssa was named to the All-Region team.
They’re different on the court — Laila’s the athlete, Alyssa’s the shooter, Alana’s the “maestro” — and yet they’re difficult to tell apart.
Figuratively, yes.
But for the twins, Alana and Alyssa, the word “literally” works, too.
Case in point: Orr forced the team to wear old game jerseys with numbers on them, in part to help him tell Alana and Alyssa apart. Orr at one point relied on looking at Alana and Alyssa’s socks to discern the two twins, he said — one prefers to wear long socks, the other prefers short socks.
But even Orr’s shorthand devices are imperfect. One time earlier this season, in a game versus Nation Ford, Alana was supposed to be out for “like two weeks” because of a minor injury. “But she didn’t want to not dress out. So we dressed her out,” Orr said.
“Well, she always sits beside me on the bench,” Orr continued. “I’m not thinking about it. I tell her, ‘Go get in the game.’ But I wasn’t referring to her. I’m thinking I’m telling Alyssa to go into the game. Anyway, this fool goes into the game. She’s playing. And a few moments later I look and say, ‘Oh snap!’ ”
Orr then laughed: “She just said, ‘I just wanted to play. You told me to go in, so I did.’ The crazy thing? Alyssa didn’t say anything either. She knew what was going on. They have that thing — some sort of telepathy.”
“Telepathy” is a fair word. The sisters said they really enjoy playing with one another. Their shared DNA, perhaps, gives them insight into each other that no one else has. They know each other’s strengths. Their weaknesses. Their tendencies. Alyssa, for instance, can be brutally honest at times, her sisters say. Laila is normally chatty, and it’s clear something’s up when she’s quiet.
Sometimes their similarities spark squabbles. But those are almost always resolved on the ride home from the gym — or on the court itself.
“It’s definitely different than another teammate,” Alyssa said, “because you have to see them at home.”
Said Alana: “We’d be fighting in the middle of a game, and then at the end of the game, we would be fine. I feel like us being so close, we’re able to get over things a lot faster. We’ll get into a fight, and we’ll be mad at each other for like an hour, and then (Alyssa or Laila) would come into my room and be like, ‘Hey, I’m lonely, do you wanna hang out?’ “
She then laughed and shrugged: “And I’d be like, ‘OK.’ ”
Rock Hill’s 2022 playoff run
The Bearcats are the team to beat in 5A South Carolina basketball.
After starting the year 5-3 — beating 2021 state runner-up Sumter but also reeling off three losses in a row to Lower Richland, Camden and Keenan in that stretch — they haven’t lost. Their average margin of victory amid their now-16-game winning streak is 43.4 points.
Rock Hill opens its 2022 playoff run on Thursday at home against Nation Ford. If it wins that, the team would play the winner of Woodmont and Wade Hampton on Saturday at 7 p.m. for a spot in the quarterfinals. The Upper State championship games will be held at Bob Jones University in Greenville on Feb. 26, and the state finals will be held on March 3 at USC-Aiken.
A state title would deliver Rock Hill High its first girl basketball state championship in program history. (The Bearcats have only made one state finals appearance — in 1981, when they lost to Dreher.)
When asked about their end-of-season goals in a group interview for this story, the Hankerson sisters talked and giggled over each other, effortlessly finishing each other’s sentences, as if they’ve been doing it their whole lives.
“Get a ring,” one said. “So we can do something that has never been done here before,” another said.
And if that doesn’t happen, the third chimed in, “We just want to know that we played the best we could” — knowing well enough that whatever happens in the last game will be talked about among the sisters/teammates/best friends all the way home.
Other area teams in SC playoffs
Eleven teams from York, Chester and Lancaster counties made this year’s girls’ basketball state playoffs.
On Wednesday, all the 4A teams play: 4-seeded York plays Westwood; 2-seeded South Pointe plays Dreher; 1-seeded Catawba Ridge plays Irmo; and 3-seeded Lancaster plays AC Flora. In 2A, 2-seeded Andrew Jackson faces Burke, and in 1A, 2-seeded Lewisville plays the Region 3-1A fourth-place finisher.
On Thursday, all the 5A teams play: 2-seeded Northwestern plays Gaffney; 3-seeded Fort Mil plays Spring Valley; 1-seeded Clover plays Ridge View; and, as previously mentioned 1-seeded Rock Hill plays 4-seeded Nation Ford.
This story was originally published February 15, 2022 at 11:13 AM.
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