City of Basketball Love

By Kevin Gamlin (@gamlinkev)
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BENSALEM — While a season long strength has suddenly disappeared in the state tournament, the Dock Mennonite boys basketball team is still dancing.

The Pioneers shot 8-of-20 from the line in the fourth quarter but somehow, some way they’re moving on to the PIAA Class 2A quarterfinals with a 48-45 win over Sankofa Freedom on Wednesday night at Bensalem. Dock moves on to play District 2 champs Holy Cross on Saturday.

“Up until the last two games we have shot 70% from the line, I don't know what it is but we are going to have to get it fixed,” said Dock’s head coach Mike Fergus. “It wasn’t just one guy, we gotta work on that.”

Unable to seal the game at the line, the Pioneers had to do so with their defense. Dock locked down Sankofa down the stretch to secure the second round win. The Warriors went the last couple of minutes without a field goal.

“We always play great defense, we did a great job on defense against Asim Hardy and Nasir Williams, they’re the two leading scorers and they’re great players,” Fergus said. “We pride ourselves on our defense, I figured if we could hold (Sankofa) under 50 points then we’d have a shot.” 

The Pioneers’ stellar defense showed up Wednesday, especially in the third quarter in which Dock outscored Sankofa, 20-11, to take a 38-32 lead into the fourth after trailing by three at the half.

A huge part of getting the lead was played by junior forward Tony Martin and senior forward Ethan Parr. Martin and Parr were two of the four players to reach double-digits in this defensive battle.

Parr led the way with 12 and Martin and Michael John contributed 10 for the senior-led Dock team. Sankofa sophomore Nafise Dubose joined them with 10.

“We were down at half and with that pressure on us we were able to prevail and succeed through the end,” Martin said. “Going into the second half we were on the coach's end of the floor and we had to listen to his adjustments so he could guide us to victory.”    

The Warriors cut the six-point fourth-quarter deficit to three with 1:44 to play and then they had to play the foul game. Sankofa pulled within two, 47-45, with 16.3 seconds left and a split by Dock at the line gave the Warriors a chance to tie. But the Warriors missed a three on the other end and couldn't pull off a miracle shot — even with two more Dock free throw misses.

Sankofa coach Isaiah Thomas, who doesn’t have any seniors, will look for a different result next season after falling to Dock in the state playoffs for the second year in a row. Captains Williams and Hardy and young players like Dubose will return another year older in 2024-25 , carrying another playoff battle scar to motivate them this offseason.

“I’m super proud of my guys, not just the way they played today but the way they played all season,” Thomas said. “We are super-happy that we are returning our entire team next year and bringing back our starting back-court in four-year starters Asim Hardy and Nasir Williams."

“We felt like we came in with a good gameplan, and for the most part our guys were able to execute that gameplan, we had some good ball pressure, we were able to get out to a lead early, then there were a few questionable plays down the stretch of the game,” he added.

Dock will have another rematch in its return to the quarterfinals against Holy Cross, which took down the Pioneers 64-57 last season. Even if it wasn’t the prettiest way to get there Wednesday night, Fergus is excited his team still has basketball left to play.

“I took the guys outside yesterday and I had them look around and smell the roses," Fergus said. "If you’re playing basketball in Pennsylvania and it’s nice outside then you’re having a great year."

“I wanna go to practice tomorrow on another 70 degree day because that means we’re doing something right.”

By Quarter
DM:   8   |  10  |  20  |  10  ||  48
SFA:  9   |  12  |  11  |  13  ||  45

Scoring
DM: Ethan Parr 12, Tony Martin 10, Michael John 10, AJ Washington 9, Vaughan Martin 6, Koby Rollerson 1

SFA: Nafise Dubose 10, Jasir Henderson 9, Asim Hardy 8, Nasir Williams 7, Jameel Brown 7, Terrence Fortson 4