Ellis, defensive effort help Dock Mennonite top Holy Ghost Prep

TOWAMENCIN >> No matter how tough things are going, the Dock Mennonite Academy boys basketball team will not stop playing defense.

Monday night, the Pioneers found themselves down three against Holy Ghost Prep with the Firebirds in possession of the ball with about three minutes left. It’s a scenario that plenty have found themselves in, usually only to see HGP run through its offense, make a late shot or free throws and walk out with the win.

Dock’s defense made sure this was not another one of those endings.

The Pioneers kept defending, gave themselves a chance and made the most of it when Darius Ellis converted a three-point play with 3.4 seconds left to lift Dock to a 36-35 home win.

“Communication and heart are always going to be the key to our defense,” Ellis said. “We always have to communicate, we have to talk on offense and defense to help us get into the game and to help us win.”

The low score was fitting for a matchup between two of the BAL’s stoutest defensive teams. Dock is all defense first and tries to create offense off the defensive end of the floor. Holy Ghost Prep coach Tony Chapman just knows how to win basketball games and his team is equally as proficient on the defensive end.

On Monday, the Firebirds used their size to their benefit on the defensive end. Playing a matchup zone, HGP used its size and long limbs to frustrate the Pioneers on offense while using crisp passing and good ballhandling to keep Dock (10-3, 7-0 BAL Presidents) from causing havoc defensively.

“Coach Chapman does a great job, he went with a bigger lineup which stymied us a bit so that was a good move on his part,” Dock coach Mike Fergus said. “To our credit, we didn’t let it affect our defense and we kept guarding the whole time. It wasn’t pretty, but we were around at the end because of our defense and could make a play to win.”

Dock trailed 8-5 after one, took a 17-17 tie to the half and trailed 28-27 after three quarters but never stopped guarding or defending. Fergus noted teams that get frustrated against Holy Ghost Prep start to find themselves down seven or eight points in the final quarter with the Firebirds running off chunks of clock.

His group never got to that point, even as they found points hard to come by most of the night. Rotating four frontcourt players 6-foot-4 or taller, the Firebirds (8-6, 5-2 BAL Independence) did a nice job of defending the rim without fouling.

Ellis had tough night down low and was well-guarded by HGP’s Greg Calvin and Sean Sylvester. Prior to his game-winning putback and foul shot, he had miss two point-blank shots while defended by Calvin.

“I was struggling, that’s the only thing I can say about it, but when I needed to, I hit the game-winning shot,” Ellis said. “We had to think it out with our brains and have the mentality to just work. Even though we were tired, we were upset, some calls weren’t going our way or we couldn’t get one, we just had to slow down and let it come to us.”

The fourth quarter was a good eight minutes of back-and-forth basketball as Dock and HGP kept answering each other. Nolan Bolton scored on a tough reverse layup off a feed from Jackson Scialanca with 5:27 left, cutting the lead to 32-31 only for Sylvester to score inside for a 34-31 lead 20 seconds later.

After Dock couldn’t convert, the Firebirds got the ball back and wound the clock all the way down to 1:41 before the Pioneers fouled to bring up free throws. Dock caught its first break when the Firebirds missed the front end of a one-and-one, Ellis got fouled and sank both foul shots.

“I work on it a lot, I worked on it all summer because I wanted to get better at free throws,” Ellis said. “I wanted to be able to hit game-winners or at least make free throws to ice a game. Well, I had a moment right there.”

The junior center scored five of his 10 points in the last quarter. Following the Ellis freebies, Dock forced a turnover but Ellis couldn’t score over Calvin and the Pioneers again had to foul. There, they caught another break as HGP split two at the line but again, Calvin forced Ellis into a miss on the low block.

Holy Ghost Prep got the rebound, but Dock’s defense came through when Dallas Wlider-Hamilton stole the ball back and the Pioneers took a timeout with 19 seconds left to draw up a play.

“What I was telling myself was just what the coaches told me to do – rebound the ball and put it back up. That’s it,” Ellis said.

The play got Antanus Tamulis a 3-pointer from the corner. His shot was short of the mark, but it fell right into Ellis’ grip and the center powered right back up, scoring the bucket and drawing Calvin’s fifth foul.

HGP called a timeout and Ellis couldn’t help but think about what was coming at the foul line.

“Oh I was definitely thinking about it,” Ellis said. “They called a timeout, there was a silent pause in my brain and then I said ‘you have to make it.’ That rim is my favorite side to shoot free throws on, so I told myself to take a breath and let’s go win the game.”

Scialanca led Dock with 13 points while Bolton had six and both seniors played tremendous on-ball defense all game. Fergus likened his team to a baseball diamond, with Scialanca, Bolton and Ellis, the Pioneers are strong up the middle and supported by guys good at one or two things all around them.

“It’s like having a good catcher, shortstop, second baseman and center fielder,” Fergus said. “We’re strong up the middle, we have a guard, a high post guy and a low post guy. The heart of your team is always up the middle.”

Fergus was proud of the way Ellis kept his head in the game and knocked down a pressure free throw in a spot the junior hadn’t been in before.

“It was probably the best moment of my life, but there’s many more to come,” Ellis said.

DOCK MENNONITE 5 12 10 9 — 36
HOLY GHOST PREP 8 9 11 7 — 35
Dock Mennonite: Nolan Bolton 3 0-1 6, Jackson Scialanca 6 0-0 13, Ralph Saint-Fleur 0 1-2 1, Antanus Tamulis 1 0-0 2, Darius Ellis 3 4-5 10, Dallas Wilder-Hamilton 2 0-0 4. Nonscoring: Roman Kuhn, Steve Martin, Troy Vasey. Totals: 15 5-8 36.
Holy Ghost Prep: Greg Sylvester 1 0-0 2, Tyler Hish 2 1-2 6, Jack Rittenmyer 1 0-0 2, Greg Calvin 5 2-2 12, Sean Elliott 4 0-1 8, Steve Cianci 1 1-2 3. Totals: 15 4-8 35.
3-pointers: DM – Scialanca; HGP – Hish.