The Blue Streaks didn’t blink on Thursday night. Warren Hills Regional High School’s boys basketball team had been there before.
Warren Hills erased a fourth-quarter deficit and rallied past Delaware Valley for the second time this season with a 62-59 victory.
The Blue Streaks, who are unbeaten in the Skyland Conference Valley Division (6-0), trailed Delaware Valley by seven entering the final period of a 71-69 comeback victory on Jan. 13. Thursday, Warren Hills faced a six-point deficit entering the fourth quarter.
“Our guys have a lot of resiliency. We’ve been in this situation before throughout the season – once to Del Val earlier at their place,” Blue Streaks coach Joe Bamford said. “It’s just a gritty group. There’s senior leadership and that bleeds down to the rest of the guys … It’s not a great situation you want to be in, but when you find yourself in it time and time again, then you handle it.”
Warren Hills junior guard Jacob Soto made a jumper and senior guard Michael Dufner grabbed a steal and scored a layup to tie the contest at 46-46 with 5:52 remaining in the fourth quarter.
The teams traded baskets before Delaware Valley junior guard Tommy Denvir pushed the visitors ahead 50-48 with a putback. Seconds later, Warren Hills senior Logan Healey splashed a 3-pointer to give the hosts their first lead of the evening, 51-50, with 4:20 left on the clock.
“We knew we had to come back firing,” said Dufner, who poured in a career-high 32 points. “We had to be explosive out of half. We’re always an aggressive team. We always play 32 minutes of defense. We just had to come out and do our thing.”
After nearly two minutes of frantic, scoreless action, Denvir pushed his team ahead 52-51 from the foul line with 2:34 left on the clock. Warren Hills quickly took the ball to the other end and senior guard Jake Nisivoccia drilled a 3-pointer to give his squad the lead for good.
Nisivoccia struggled from the field during a scoreless first half but finished with 10 points after getting big buckets down the stretch.
“He’s just one of those seniors who doesn’t get real high, doesn’t get real low. He just lets the game come to him,” Bamford said. “He tries to get other guys involved, but he never shies away from the big moment … The kid just works really hard, and he never gets down. He finds other ways to impact the game if his shot’s not going. Then, when the time comes, he always seems to rise to the occasion.”
Dufner caught an inbound pass from Soto and scored while being fouled with 40.7 seconds remaining. The senior sank the free throw to extend Warren Hills’ advantage to 59-54.
After a 3-pointer by Delaware Valley sophomore Peter Dubljevic, Dufner made a pair from the charity stripe to make it 61-57 with 13.1 seconds on the clock.
“We practice free throws every day. It’s natural now,” said Dufner, who was 5-for-5 from the foul line in the fourth quarter.
Denvir scored the final two of his 28 points by draining a pair of free throws with 8 seconds to play, bringing the Terriers (14-7 overall, 7-3 division) within two at 61-59.
Warren Hills senior guard Mekhi Garrett made a difficult catch of the ensuing inbound pass to avoid a potentially disastrous turnover.
“Three-sport athlete, you need to translate that to every sport and make a play when you need to make a play,” said Garrett, who made 46 receptions during football season and also runs track.
Garrett made 1 of 2 from the free throw line. A desperation heave by Del Val at the buzzer was off target.
The Terriers scored the first six points of the game and took a 20-10 lead on a couple foul shots by Denvir in the closing seconds of the first quarter.
Del Val led by as many as 13 past the midway point of the third quarter, taking a 41-28 advantage on a layup by senior forward Terry Ni.
“After halftime, when we saw we were down, we had to come out and play our brand of basketball,” Garrett said.
Warren Hills shrank the deficit by closing the third on a 10-3 run, with seven of those points coming from Dufner.
“We’re a second-half team. We always come in, in the third and fourth quarter, and just bury teams,” said Dufner, who entered Thursday as the reigning lehighvalleylive.com Player of the Week. “The fans were hyped. Everyone was hyped; it’s contagious.”
The career high is just another night at the office for Dufner, who is averaging 20.1 points per contest. He’s taken his game to another level as a senior after averaging 12.2 points per outing last year.
“He’s been unbelievable,” Bamford said. “On the offensive side of the ball, he’s been our catalyst and the guy that makes us go. He comes in ready to work every single day and gets better. He has drive. I can’t respect him enough as a former player to see what he’s done to put himself in a position to be successful on the court.”
Warren Hills (14-3, 6-0) still has four more divisional games but is firmly in the driver’s seat for a championship. Del Val is second in the standings at 7-3 and Somerville is next at 5-4.
Those thoughts are on the back burner, however, as top-seeded Warren Hills prepares for its Hunterdon/Warren/Sussex quarterfinal 1 p.m. Saturday against defending county champ Phillipsburg. The Streaks beat the Stateliners 56-37 on Jan. 31.
“That’s really been our mindset the entire season, just taking it one game at a time,” Bamford said. “It’s late in the season, we’ve got some big games. It’s a tough division. We’re super-excited about the position that we’re in, but it’s not going to be an easy road. We’ve got a really tough division and we respect the hell out of those teams, so we know it’s going to be a fight. Obviously, we’re happy where we are, but we can’t be complacent right now.”
