February 27, 1999

Calvert slips past Hopewell-Loudon, 64-51

By Dave Feltner
Sports Editor

BASCOM &emdash; The chant eventually came, although for Calvert followers it was a little later than they probably expected.

''MAL! MAL! MAL!'' eventually bellowed from the Senecas' student section, but not before Hopewell-Loudon gave them a mighty scare.

Calvert slipped past the Chieftains, 64-51, and secured its first outright Midland Athletic League championship in 10 years, the first unbeaten run through the league by a boys team since St. Wendelin in 1992.

The chant is somewhat a sign of the times at Calvert. Just four months ago, the Senecas completed an unbeaten run through the league in football.

''It makes things fun at Calvert every day,'' coach Tony Mass said. ''And that's the way it's supposed to be. It's been a great year athletically for these kids. And they've worked hard for this. Nobody gave them anything. Just like Hopewell-Loudon tonight. They definitely made us work for it.''

And work, and work, and work until it finally paid off. In fact, a night's worth of work boiled to the final four minutes of basketball.

At that point, Hopewell-Loudon's Neil Hohman had just hit two foul shots to bring the Chieftains (9-11, 6-4) to within 50-48. But Hopewell-Loudon went scoreless over the next three minutes, and Calvert (17-3, 10-0) went on a mini-run to put the Chieftains away.

Most of the damage was done at the foul line, where Joe Harvey and Dan Walter combined to hit six in a row. The run came to a close when the Chieftains turned the ball over in the backcourt, and Harvey flew down the court and got a flying layup to drop for a 58-48 lead at the 1:16 mark.

Ryan Martinez finally snapped H-L's drought with a 3-pointer, but Walter tacked on four more foul shots and Dustyn Risner added another in the final minute.

''(Calvert) gave us a lot of opportunities, but we didn't execute on the offensive end all night,'' Hopewell-Loudon coach Steve Adelsperger said. ''We were very impatient, and we turned the ball over (25 times). You can't do that against a quality team like Calvert. You have to take advantage of opportunties, and we didn't do that.''

Opportunites came in the form of 19-of-53 shooting from the floor by the Senecas, and a 41-33 H-L advantage on the boards. And at times the Chieftains were dominant on the inside. Post players Jake Moore and Andy Hiser combined for 23 points and 19 rebounds.

But 25 turnovers and poor shooting (18-of-54) themselves undid H-L down the stretch.

''We're not a great outside shooting team,'' Adelsperger said. ''And we took some 3-pointers that weren't really in our offense. A lot of times we were going down, making one or two passes and putting up a shot, and again, you can't do that against a team like Calvert. We wanted to take the ball to the hole and we couldn't do that. We just never got in the flow tonight.''

Walter shot just 7-of-19 from the field, but led all scorers with 22 points. Harvey had 16 and was the only other Seneca player to score in double figures. Matt Hammer pitched in nine points.

Moore had 12 points and 13 boards for the Chieftains. Martinez and Hiser each had 11 points, and Harber finished with nine.

''We did not shoot the ball very well,'' Mass said. ''And even though we didn't run our offense very well we still got a lot of good looks at the basket. We weren't hitting those shots, but the kids just never quit. They hate to lose.

(MORE)SL: SCALGAMER PAGE: 2''I won't say it was pretty; games with Hopewell-Loudon and Calvert usually aren't,'' he said. ''It's a big rivalry. Usually, the last one standing wins.''

And during the good years &emdash; when it's all over &emdash; you get to chant.