C.dock’s defense downs Phil-mont
With no clear-cut favorite in the Bicentennial Constitution Division, Wednesday night’s game between Christopher Dock and PhilMont Christian was an important one for both sides. The Falcons are good at home, but good defense trumps almost all of the time.
“Dock played extremely hard and were really intense on defense,” PhilMont coach Glenn Dolton said. “We knew what was going to happen, we just weren’t able to execute taking certain things away from them.”
Dock used a tough defense to cause turnovers and turn them into points all night to down PhilMont Christian, 59-45, on the road. Maintaining a lead from the second quarter on, the Pioneers consistently frustrated the Falcons, though the home side was never completely out of the game.
Dock hit 12 of 15 free throws in the final period, which kept PMCA from a comeback.
“We did a nice job defensively after the first few minutes,” Dock coach Matt Dolan said. “I thought Azariah Parmer and Sean Hinton did a great job all night. I think we ran the floor really well, but we missed a lot of layups. But, we ran our offense well and hit our foul shots at the end.”
The first half was a fairly close affair, with PMCA leading after one quarter. Part of PMCA’s early success had a lot to do with a solid distribution of points, as all five starters had a bucket in the first quarter. However, save wach Dolton and Seth Brandenburg, many Falcons began to disappear as the game went on.
Dock’s Azariah Parmer, who led all scorers with 20 points, punished PMCA both down low and from mid-range. He also got to the charity stripe 11 times, converting on eight foul shots. His contribution on both sides of the floor set the tone early and other guys seemed to feed of him.
Sean Hinton and Najee Miller, who did not wow on the scoresheet, both played good defense and pulled down key rebounds. Dock was the more athletic team and it showed throughout. The Dock defense held PMCA to just eight points in the third while scoring a game-high 17.
“We continue to struggle with offensive flow,” Dolton said. “We are in a transition period right now. We are trying to battle a few things. It was a decent game at the half, but we committed too many unforced turnovers and they scored off them. We didn’t do a great job taking care of the ball.”
Heading into the fourth quarter, Dock had a 4331 lead, which was very manageable for the Falcons. Brandenburg tried to bring PMCA back all by himself, scoring 10 of his 12 points in the final period. The problem was, only two other Falcons scored and combined for just four points.
Dock’s Jared Armstrong had eight of his 17 points in the fourth, all coming from the free throw line from which he did not miss. Although the Pioneers only managed two buckets in the quarter, they hit 12 of 15 free throws. The combination of hitting their foul shots and basically shutting down PMCA after the first quarter resulted in a much deserved win.
“Phil-Mont had a better league record than us in their gym coming in,” Dolan said. “Any league win is tough, but any league win on the road is even more important. Our guys are confident and we are looking forward to playing Calvary on Friday.”