Dock Mennonite keeps BAL newcomer Calvary Baptist winless in league play

TOWAMENCIN >> The Calvary Baptist boys basketball team is taking its lumps in its first season in the Bicentennial Athletic League.

“Our old league, the ACCAC we some night we would beat teams by 40. Not this league, it’s too quality,” Warriors coach Tony Hall said. “So we got a rude awakening.”

Calvary Baptist was denied it first BAL win in its fourth try Tuesday night, this time by Dock Mennonite Academy. The visiting Pioneers raced out to a 17-2  lead after a quarter and the margin never dipped below double digits as Dock came away with the 52-37 win.

“I thought, for the first half to be sure, really good team ball. We made maybe too many extra passes,” Dock Mennonite coach Mike Fergus said. “We really moved the ball good against the zone. We only had five turnovers in the first half and every shot we took was a good, open look.”

Deins Bergis paced the Pioneers (2-3, 2-2 BAL Presidents) with 15 points, seven coming during 14-0 run during the first and second quarters that staked Dock out to a 20-2 lead.

“He can shoot, he can pass, he’s unselfish. He’s got a really high basketball IQ,” said Fergus of Bergis. “And the thing with him is, he’s averaging 23 points a game he’s only shooting like 13 times a game.”

Miz Nyagwegwe added eight points while Jackson Scialanca and Nick Schnable both finished with seven points for Dock, which as won two straight — beating Devon Prep 58-43 last Saturday — to rebound from an 0-3 start.

“This is team is improving and we easily could be 4-1,” Fergus said. “We’ll see, that’s why you play these games early. And we’re kind of a young team. Yeah, we have a couple seniors like Dains and Nick but three of my starters tonight were underclassmen.”

Calvary Baptist, meanwhile, has done the opposite. After picking up two wins at their tip-off tournament to start the year, the Warriors have dropped for consecutive games, all in BAL play.

“We’re young, period,” Hall said. “We start one senior Mike Dougherty and he’s getting himself going but it’s different versus last year when we had a 6-8 big, we had a couple guys who had some experience.”

BOYS #BASKETBALL: @DockMennonite‘s Deins Bergis hits a 3 after good ball movement from the Pioneers 2Q vs. Calvary Baptist. pic.twitter.com/cjaoRltmcm

— Mike Cabrey (@mpcabrey) December 21, 2016

And while the Warriors (2-4, 0-4 BAL Constitution) has yet to earn a win in its new league, Hall sees a path to emulate in Faith Christian, like Calvary Baptist a former ACCAC member that joined the Bicentennial in 2012.

“Watching teams walk into this league, Faith (Christian) being the last team and their first year they were 1-21 after winning the ACC. So they came from the same league we were in,” Hall said. “I didn’t at the time think that we were going to do it, I didn’t know if we were going to make that move but just in knowing some things about that team that had left our league and then went to the BAL, you pay attention to that kind of stuff and see how they do.”

After the Warriors’ Mike Dougherty bucket made it 6-2 in the first quarter Tuesday, Nyagwegwe posted two on a putback before Bergis scored off an inbound then converted a three-point play to make it 13-2 with 1:38 left in the first quarter. Bergis found Nyagwegwe for a basket with Scialanca scored to make it a 15-point Dock lead after the opening quarter.

“The game is so much faster playing against these teams,” Hall said. “Fergus does a great job, Mike does a great job with his kids, they play pretty good defense, got a couple good scorers. They take care of the basketball.”

Bergis knocked down a three to make the lead 18 before a Dougherty free throw at 6:14 finally ended the run.

“Early on in the year, our biggest strength has been our defense,” Fergus said. “We played really good defense. If you throw out the first game when we played a really good team all the teams that we’ve played since them we’ve given up after today probably 40 points a game. We’re outrebounding people, so that’s been a real strength of ours is how hard we play defense.”

The Pioneers led 29-10 at halftime while a Nyagwegwe’s triple made it 33-12 in the third before Dougherty got hot for the Warriors. Dougherty scored 10 of his game-high 18 in the quarter, twice hitting threes to pull Calvary Baptist to within 14, the last at 36-22.

“I’ve got to give him a green light big time,” Hall said. “I said don’t worry about the shots, we want to try to get the best shot selection that you can. But he’s got a good, nice little jumper which he can hit.”

Scialanca, however, connected on a pull-up jumper in the final seconds of the third for a 38-22 Dock lead. The Pioneers proceeded to start the fourth with an 10-2 run to grab their largest lead at 48-24 on a basket by Nolan Bolton.

Dock Mennonite 52, Calvary Baptist 37
Dock Mennonite              17 12   9 14 — 52
Calvary Baptist  2   8 12 15 — 37
Dock Mennonite: Deins Bergis 5 3-5 15; Miz Nyagwegwe 3 1-2 8; Jackson Scialanca 3 0-0 7; Nick Schnable 3 1-2 7; Nolan Bolton 3 0-0 6; Justin Burkholder 1 2-2 4; Caleb Pfleiger 1 0-0 3; Connor Schnable 1 0-0 2. Totals 20 7-11 52.
Calvary Baptist: Mike Dougherty 7 1-1 18; Drew Grow 4 0-0 9; Collin Schwartz 2 0-1 4; Nick Bonczek 1 0-0 3; Luke Faucette 1 0-2 3. Totals 15 1-4 37.
Three-pointers: DM-Bergis 2; Nyagwegwe, Pfleiger, Scialanca; CB-Dougherty 3, Bonczek, Grow.