Dock’s Fergus reaches 600 wins
COVID-19 forces schedule changes
Dock Mennonite boys basketball coach Mike Fergus reached an impressive milestone earlier this month as the Pioneers’ 6956 win at Church Farm School gave their head coach his 600th career victory.
“It’s interesting,” said Fergus of reaching 600 after Dock beat visiting Jenkintown 59-43 Dec. 22. “I’m proud of all the teams I’ve coached. Every place I’ve coached I’ve enjoyed the kids. I’ve been able to keep doing it with the same passion and energy and as long as I got that I feel like I can still help guys win games. So it was nice but we move on.”
Fergus has been coaching for 45 years with 40 of those as a high school head coach. Last season, he picked up his 100th win at Dock after having previously reached triple digits in victories at Robert E. Lee in Houston, Texas, State College (as both the boys and girls coach) and North Penn — winning 171 games in 12 seasons with the Knights.
Dock has gone 116-74 in Fergus’ eight seasons at the school with the Pioneers posting winning records in last five years with PIAA tournament appearances in 2017, 2018 and 2020 and a District 1-2A championship in 2020.
Since falling to Upper Dublin in its season opener at Souderton’s Jim Church Classic Dec. 10, Dock Mennonite has ripped off eight victories in a row, capping December by winning its holiday tournament by beating New Hope-Solebury 60-50 Tuesday then Dobbins Tech 84-72 Wednesday.
“I love this place,” Fergus said. “Over the last five years, our record is phenomenal. It’s really good. We’ve really, really got this program solid and we’re getting good players and we know how we want to play, guys like Tomir (Johnson) and Nathan (Lapp) are good examples. Tomir’s been a four-year player here.
“They come here and they see that what we do is going to get them better and they buy in.” DEALING WITH COVID » Basketball has been a sport that has taken a bigger brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic with state tournaments being canceled before they were completed in March 2020 while last season’s start delayed until January.
This year’s campaign began on time but as COVID cases having risen in the winter along with concerns over the Omicron variant, a return to something close to a normal season seems to be not quite there yet.
“The thing we constantly tell them — one, tomorrow’s not guaranteed so give everything you have out there on the floor because we can be shut down for a week tomorrow,” said Wissahickon coach Kyle Wilson after the Trojans’ 60-59 over host Perkiomen Valley Tuesday at the PV Holiday Shootout. “Which isn’t bad, I mean last year you were like, ‘hey you’re shut down shut down,’ who knows when you’re coming back. But now it’s like a five-day, seven-day thing.”
Postponements and schedule rearranging for a number of area teams began before Christmas. Wissahickon was one of those, replacing its Dec. 23 game against Upper Dublin with one against New Hope-Solebury — winning 50-32 — and pushing back the matchup with UD to Jan. 20.
Methacton, which beat the Trojans 46-32 Wednesday, had its first two Pioneer Athletic Conference games rescheduled.
North Penn also competed at the PV Holiday shootout — losing to Methacton 66-53 and then Perk Valley in overtime 68-59 — with Knights coach John Conrad saying his team continues to maintain the standard COVID preventative measures.
“I think our kids have been pretty good,” Conrad said after Tuesday’s matchup with Methacton. “We wear masks, wash our hands, they stay distanced so hopefully we’ll be OK.”
A handful of holiday tournaments were canceled such as Jenkintown’s Robert Hopf Tournament for boys and girls, the George Snear girls tournament at the Fellowship House in Conshohocken and Upper Dublin girls’ Cardinal Classic.
The UD girls did end up playing a pair of home games, Tuesday beating Bishop Shanahan 48-41 then falling to Mount Saint Joseph — which was slated to be in the Cardinal Classic — 46-31 Wednesday.
The Lansdale Catholic girls, who were set to compete at George Snear, filled in for Villa Joseph Marie at Boyertown’s tournament, beating the host Bears 6030 Tuesday before falling to Delone Catholic 54-48 in the final the following day. “You have to say with fidelity our kids are doing what they’re supposed to so maybe you lose a player and not shut down your team,” Wilson said. “Because I haven’t been in that situation yet but I’ve got to assume shutting down takes some continuity away because then you’ve got to come back, do a few practices and get a rhythm going again so you really are trying to dodge bullets every day by just telling kids the basics.” EXPLORERS SET FOR PCL PLAY » La Salle’s holiday tournament was reformatted into a three-team, three-day event but the Explorers got two games in and pick up wins in both.
La Salle stopped a twogame skid Monday by besting Pittsburgh Central Catholic 68-61 in overtime then Wednesday topped Malvern Prep 59-48
“I feel like our ceiling’s so much higher than where we’re at right now,” said Explorers senior Nix Varano after the Central Catholic win. “We have so much talent. We’re playing good right now, I think we’re 4-2 but we can be so much better.”
La Salle sits at 5-2 as its heads into January and the start of Philadelphia Catholic League play. The Explorers’ scheduled league opener at Cardinal O’Hara Monday was postponed to Jan. 12 so La Salle starts at home against Bonner & Prendergast Friday.
The Explorers went 8-5 in the PCL last year but missed the league’s fourteam tournament.