NEW CASTLE – Mount Pleasant boys basketball coach Lisa Sullivan felt her team wasn’t getting fully involved in games quickly enough.
So the Green Knights came out in a full-court press on Tuesday at William Penn.
“Beginning to end, we just felt like it was a good look for us,” Sullivan said. “We have to come so early to games that we sit around for a couple of hours. I just wanted to get them up and moving, into the game earlier.”
Mount Pleasant’s Fah’Mir Ali( front) lifts a shot past William Penn’s Buck Bowling (center) and Jermal Crumel in the second half of Mount Pleasant’s 55-45 win at William Penn Tuesday.
The pressure paid dividends in the form of 13 turnovers – 10 in the first half – that made the difference as No. 3 Mount Pleasant survived a 3-point barrage from the Colonials and clinched at least a share of the Blue Hen Flight A championship with a 55-45 victory.
“We press a lot in practice,” said the Green Knights’ Ny’Jere Hodges, who transferred from William Penn for his senior season. “We try to develop that and use it on the court. I like how we all executed and worked hard on it.”
Mount Pleasant (16-3, 7-0) hit its first four shots, with Vincent Smith lobbing to KVonn Cramer for a thunderous dunk that made it 8-2 and prompted a Colonials timeout.
William Penn got 3-pointers from Dasir King and Jordan Harding to pull within 13-9 after one quarter. That’s when the press really started to click.
Mount Pleasant’s Fah’Mir Ali drives in front of William Penn’s Gerrad Wall in the second half of Mount Pleasant’s 55-45 win at William Penn Tuesday.
Fah’Mir Ali turned a steal into a layup, then got another easy score off another turnover to make it 17-11. The Green Knights ended the first half on an 8-2 run, with Ali scoring off his own miss at the buzzer for a 27-18 cushion.
“I’m going to lead them a little bit, calm us down,” said Ali, who led all scorers with 14 points. “I got together, talked to them, and we really knew what to do after that.”
The press got to the Colonials again at the start of the fourth quarter. Ali scored off a turnover, then pulled up for a short jumper that made it 42-26 with 5:21 to play.
“I have so many kids, and they’re so athletic,” Sullivan said of the Green Knights, who played 10 players in the win. “We can press all the time and keep fresh kids all the time, because we’re so deep.”
The Colonials (9-7, 5-2) fought to get back in it with 3s from Tim Bateman, Harding, and Terin Cochran. William Penn hit 7 of 13 (53.8 percent) from behind the arc, but it seemed like even more to Sullivan.
“Kudos to them,” she said. “I don’t know what their shooting percentage was, but it had to be astronomical. They made the shots when they had to.”
The Green Knights had been ranked No. 1 all season, until wrapping close losses to Hodgson and Salesianum around a big conference win over Newark last week. A little pressure got their blood flowing immediately Tuesday.
“It definitely wakes you up,” Sullivan said. “You tell them, ‘On any given day.’ Sallies had the perfect storm. Hodgson had the perfect storm. But we learned from it, and now we’ve made adjustments. Should we see that again, I feel pretty confident that it will be a different outcome.”
Doug Sneh added 10 points for Mount Pleasant. King and Harding each scored 13 for William Penn.
Contact Brad Myers at bmyers@delawareonline.com. Follow on Twitter: @BradMyersTNJ.
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Mount Pleasant’s Ny’Jere Hodges (left) pushes the ball up court and in front of William Penn’s Jermal Crumel in the second half of Mount Pleasant’s 55-45 win at William Penn Tuesday.
Mount Pleasant’s KVonn Cramer (center) is filed moving between William Penn’s Terin Cochran (left) and Buck Bowling in the second half of Mount Pleasant’s 55-45 win at William Penn Tuesday.