By Nichole Duffy | [email protected]

After Hillcrests’ back to back wins against fellow region teams Murray (49-35) and Cottonwood (56-50) the City Journals caught up with third-year captain and leading scorer, Brox Ashby. 

If the name sounds familiar it could be because of his older brothers, Mckay and Stockton Ashby who also started for the Hillcrest boys basketball team from 2013-2018. 

The Ashbys are a basketball family through and through, Brox explained. “My dad loves basketball, growing up that’s all we watched and that’s all we played.”

Brox has been a part of Hillcrest basketball since he was a freshman in the 2016 season, averaging 4 points a game and lettering that year and has been on a steady rise ever since. 

“Their family records the Jazz games and watches them after our games as a family,” Coach Sanjin Kolovrat said about the Ashby’s basketball obsession. 

Brox smiled widely and said, “Yeah, we really love the Jazz.”

At 6-foot-1, Brox is a large guard, whose responsibilities include controlling the pace of the game and making hard choices.

As a sophomore Brox began as a starting five member of the varsity team, and captain, that year averaging 14 points per game. 

When asked if that was a hard decision, Kolovrat said, “No, he is a 100% leader. He takes care of business in the classroom and leads his teammates on the floor.” 

One aspect that could be contributing to Hillcrests’ success thus far is the way Brox’s game has evolved over the last two seasons. “In basketball terms, his decision making [has improved]; he was only really known as a scoring/shooting guard before this year, whereas now teams have to be aware of his decision making and passing,” Kolvorat said. “He sees the whole court so well and our guys know to be ready for a pass to come their way.”

One factor that could have inspired this change was Brox’s junior year pregame injury to his foot. Brox explained, “I broke my foot and it took a lot of hard work and working on my game and working out with the coaches that really brought my game to the next level.” He went on to average 15 points a game that year.

Kolovrat added, “Hillcrest historically really hadn’t had an offseason program, so my coaches and I implemented one where we would have the team doing weights once or twice a week as well as skill development once or twice a week.”

Brox’s stats certainly show the discipline he has for the game, this season averaging 18 points, and in line to be the first player in more than 20 years to reach 1,000 points in their Hillcrest high school career. He is just 9 points shy. Kolovrat believes he will reach that goal in their next game against Brighton on Jan. 21 (past press deadline). 

Clearly Kolovrat and his colleagues are doing something right as the Hillcrest boys varsity are 4-2 in their region and have high aspirations for the future. 

“We got a lot of energy and a lot of good kids, we have ‘family’ written on the back of our warm-ups, it’s a big deal for us to have that positivity,” Kolovrat said. “We want to win more games than last year, we want to host a game in the state finals, and we just focus on getting better every day, and Brox is a big part of that. When he goes, we all go.”

Brox has received scholarship offers from Green River College and Centralia College both in Washington State, but has decided to serve a mission before committing to any school.