City of Basketball Love

Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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ROSEMONT —  In fourth grade, Nathan Lapp walked into a tryout for the Deep Run travel team and spotted a tall kid with curly blonde hair he didn’t recognize.

The kid was Hoyt Bultje, who just moved into the area from Wisconsin and is now captaining the boys basketball team at Dock with Lapp after eight years of playing hoops together. The longtime friends hope they have a few more games left together.

The Pioneers and their senior captains kept their seasons and careers alive Saturday at Harriton with a 65-55 victory over Delco Christian in the District 1-2A championship — the Pioneers’ first district title since 2020.

“Me and Nate have played together since fourth grade,” Bultje said. “We’ve had a basketball relationship for a while, which has been good. We always just seem to click well. When we came to high school, it was great to be on a team with him. I knew a couple of the other guys growing up, played in rec leagues and stuff like that. It’s great to be here right now senior year, last shot, to be with them.”

The Dock Mennonite boys basketball team poses with its District 1-2A championship trophy after a win over Delco Christian on Saturday at Harriton. (Photo: Owen McCue/CoBL)

Lapp scored 20 points and tallied four assists, five rebounds and two steals, junior guard Vaughan Martin added 11 points and Bultje chipped in six points and 10 boards in the victory. 

“I said before the game to somebody I’d have to go back a long time to see two better captains,” Dock coach Mike Fergus said of Lapp and Bultje. “Their leadership is just unbelievable, and they’re so competitive.”

After playing together for five years in elementary school and middle school, Bultje and Lapp didn’t share the court for the first time when they got to high school, Lapp spending his freshman season at Dock and Bultje at Pennridge.

When COVID forced Pennridge into a hybrid learning model, Bultje’s parents searched for a school with in-person learning. Lapp nudged Bultje toward Dock, knowing if it was an academic fit that the Pioneers could also use a big man to complement his outside game over the next three years.

“My parents wanted me to be in school and keep my learning up,” Bultje said. “Then Nate came along and was bugging me to come take a tour, come watch a game, come take a look at our program. I took a look at the program, and kind of fell in love with what their philosophy was and what they were preaching basketball-wise.”

Lapp is the lone senior on the Pioneers roster who played a role on the program’s last district title team in 2020. Dock competed at the Class 3A level in each of the past two seasons, falling to Executive Education Charter in the District 1/11 championship game both years.

The Pioneers (25-2) have stacked up the hardware this season, however, winning Souderton’s tip-off tournament, their own holiday tournament and the Bicentennial Athletic League regular-season and tournament championships before Saturday’s title game.

“Going into the year, one of our goals is to win one championship,” Lapp said. “We didn’t win one, we won five, which is awesome. We wouldn’t have done it without our team. Our team is just insane. We’re so poised, we have great leadership. We have guys who can shoot the ball, guys that know their role and on top of that, we have great coaching. That’s what sets the bar. Our coaches are so good and they make sure we’re ready to play each game and I’m very grateful for that.”

Dock took down Delco Christian 62-34 back on Dec. 13 as part of its unbeaten run through the BAL regular season and tournament. The Pioneers looked to be on the way to another rout of the Knights (14-12) early in Saturday’s title game.

The Pioneers came out of the game on fire, making six of their first seven 3-point attempts. Lapp had four 3-point makes in the first quarter, helping his team to a 23-8 lead. Dock finished the first half with 10 makes from deep to take a 38-21 advantage into the break.

Delco Christian has some shooters of its own. Sophomore Khamai Orange 15, junior Cole Pruessner (12), sophomore Caleb Jamson (11), junior Josiah Gaines (9) and sophomore Beau Lyren (8) made up the well-rounded scoring effort. Dock coach Mike Fergus let his team know to be ready for a swing in the second half. 

The Pioneers grew their lead to 21 points, 50-29, before the Knights finally made their run at the end of the third quarter. A 10-2 stretch cut Dock’s lead down to 52-39 heading to the fourth. 

Lapp picked up his fourth foul early in the fourth with his team still ahead by 15. A few moments later, a Jameson three cut the lead to nine. By the 2:16 mark, a pair of Jameson free throws made it 57-52 Dock.

“We kind of just had to stay the course, be ourselves, stick to what our gameplan was, trusting each other, which we got great team chemistry in here,” Butje said. “We got a lot of seniors. We’ve got great senior leadership as our coach always says, so just to stay the course and stick to the game plan was key.”

With the lead still at five in the final minute and a half, senior guard Zach Neff, who had two of the team’s 11 threes, came up with a big steal before Lapp pushed the lead to 60-53 on a pair of free throws with 1:19 to play. He took a charge on the ensuing possession then sophomore Tony Martin’s free throws pushed the Dock advantage to nine with less than a minute to go, quelling the Knights’ comeback attempt.

The Knights have nine total seniors in Lapp, Bultje, Neff, Lane Bergey, Cooper Brannon, Eric Zheng, Steven Liu, Owen Yuan, and Tyler Derstein. Fergus agreed that played a difference in Saturday’s game. 

“The difference was, we’ve been there, like the poise at the end of the game,” Fergus said. 

“At the end, the fact that we’re seniors contributed to that win. I don’t know if we’d have won that game if their guys were seniors and our guys were as young as they are.

Dock advanced to the PIAA Class 2A semifinals during Lapp’s freshman season before COVID cut the Pioneers’ run short. They didn’t get a chance to compete in a reduced 3A field in 2021 and lost in the first round of the 3A playoffs last season.

Lapp will play baseball at Millersville next season and Bultje, whose curly hair has grown quite a few inches since that tryout eight years ago, plans to attend a larger university, possibly back in Wisconsin. The pair hope they can add a sixth trophy to the case at Dock in the state tournament.

“Anything’s possible, you never know,” Lapp said. “We’re gonna be ready.”

By Quarter

Delco 8 | 13 | 18 | 16 || 55

Dock 23 | 15 | 14 | 13 || 65

Scoring

Delco: Khamai Orange 15, Cole Pruessner 12, Caleb Jamson 11, Josiah Gaines 9, Beau Lyren 8.

Dock: Nathan Lapp 20, Vaughan Martin 11, Tony Martin 8, Lane Bergey 6, Hoyt Bultje 6, AJ Washington 6, Zach Neff 6, Ethan Parr 2.