Mike Mathews
Cumberland Times-News
— COLLEGE PARK — The Allegany Campers have been down this road before. This time they hope the trip home will be a bit more enjoyable.
The unbeaten Campers (23-0) head to the Comcast Center at the University of Maryland today for the Class 1A boys state basketball tournament. Awaiting them there will be a well-known opponent, the 11-time champion Dunbar Poets (17-5), for a 3 p.m. semifinal.
This will be the fifth meeting between the teams. Dunbar, of Baltimore, has won the previous four, three having been in championship games: 90-62 in 1994, 68-43 in 2004 and 68-47 in 2006. The Poets won 54-36 in a semifinal in 2005.
Allegany has won a record 14 state championships, the last one coming in 1993. In their last five appearances, the Campers lost to the eventual state champion: three times to Dunbar in the final (2006, 2004, 1994), once in the semifinals to Dunbar (2005), and last year in the semifinals to Digital Harbor, now in Class 2A.
The state semifinal pairings are made in advance by random draw. This year the West Region champion plays the South, and the North plays the East.
“You just always assume Dunbar is the best team in the tournament most every time you go down there. And if you’re going to win a state championship you’re going to have to beat them at some point,’’ said Allegany coach Tedd Eirich. “As they say, if you want to be the best you have to beat the best, and that is the way our team will look at it.”
Last year the Campers struggled out of the box against Digital Harbor. They trailed 34-10 at halftime in a 64-45 loss.
“I thought we played scared the first half, and by the time halftime came and we realized we could play with them, it was already over,’’ Eirich said of last year’s game. “We have to have confidence in ourselves. We can’t walk onto that floor at 3 o’clock and be afraid. It’s only a basketball game. They will be quicker than us but that doesn’t mean we can’t beat them.”
Casey Roberts, the team leader in scoring, assists and steals, believes the confidence level is high. The Campers lost only two players to graduation from last year’s team.
“There’s a lot more confidence, and there’s a lot more pressure this year,’’ he said. “Last year nobody really expected it from us. This year, a lot of people expected us to get back to the state tournament. The experience definitely helped, and we definitely have more confidence this year.”
The Campers cruised through the regular season and regional tournament. They’ve been so dominant that only one of their 23 games was decided by less than 10 points. The lone exception was a 71-69 win over Hollidaysburg, Pa., the second game of the year. The average victory margin in three playoff games was 22 points.
They’ve won high-scoring games and a few low-scoring games against teams that tried to control the tempo by holding the ball.
“We love running the ball up and down the court,’’ Eirich said. “That’s what Dustin Wharton and Casey Roberts and Aaron Smith do so well. Jordan Grady runs the court better than any big man and Adam Boor is as athletic as anybody. It’s what they love to do and it’s fun to do it.”
Roberts is averaging 25.5 points, 4.9 assists, 4.7 rebounds and 3.1 steals, Grady 13.3 points, 10.3 rebounds, three steals and 1.6 blocks, and Wharton 11.9 points and 3.4 assists. Boor is averaging 8 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.3 steals.
Roberts is shooting 57 percent from the field and Grady 54. Wharton leads the area in foul shooting at 82.5 percent.
The offense has been overpowering. The defense, perhaps, overshadowed. It hasn’t gone unnoticed, though, as Eirich pointed out after Saturday’s 72-58 region championship win over Williamsport.
“Dustin Wharton has disrupted every team’s offense this year with the pressure he has put on the opponent’s ball-handlers,’’ he said. “And there are no better defensive players in the area than Dustin and Adam Boor.”
Today’s other semifinal pits Snow Hill (24-2) against Owings Mills (19-6) at 5 o’clock. The state championship game is Saturday at 1 o’clock.
Mike Mathews is a Cumberland Times-News sportswriter. He can be reached at mmathews@times-news.com.
