Annville-Cleona Continues Scintillating Start As Dutchmen Make Quick Work Of Upper Dauphin, Remain Unblemished Through First Week Of The Season
Written by: Andy Herr on December 6, 2023
As is always the case whenever a season kicks off anew, there are inevitably a share of initial gut-reactions that those who follow any sport tend to make in a sort of grandiose and sweeping nature. And in all reality, not even high school basketball is immune to such abrupt judgements.
Almost on the same level of regularity as the sun rising in the east at the onset of every morning, so too do those immediate storylines that start to develop and capture the wider audience’s attention large, albeit after just the first few nights of the season. Well, in terms of this year’s Lancaster-Lebanon League boys’ basketball realm in the year 2023, Annville-Cleona might very well be the team that has best played the role of thief thus far given how the Dutchmen have seemed to steal the show out from underneath everyone else found competing during the opening weekend of the season.
Hard to argue frankly given the Dutchmen went to Hamburg in successive nights on Friday and Saturday and came away with the Hamburg Tip-Off tourney title for their troubles after dispatching the likes of Shenandoah Valley and Northern Lehigh respectively to take the eventual crown. But even contained with that pair of games came another storyline which likely peaked everyone’s interest. For that, you’d have to credit A-C junior guard, Elisha Slabach, who poured in a 30-point performance to raise the curtain on the season before following that up with a scintillating 20-point outing in the title bout the very next night. All told, while the season barely its sea legs, including with some teams inside the conference still yet to even play a game, the Annville-Cleona Dutchmen certainly did no wrong when it came to potentially throwing their hat into what figures to be the crowded Section Four ring given their somewhat eyebrow-raising first weekend.
That said, the task at hand on Tuesday when the Dutchmen returned home to open their revamped home gym in welcoming Upper Dauphin into their refurbished enclave was to prove that their excursion over to Hamburg was anything but a flash in a pan. Well, as would become readily apparent right from the initial jump against UDA, there certainly doesn’t appear to be anything remotely phony with A-C’s start to the campaign.
To say that Annville-Cleona’s Jon Shay started the game off against Upper Dauphin fast might be selling the junior big man entirely too short. Sure enough, following a steal and layup in transition, Shay had successfully tallied all eight of the Dutchmen’s first points, making it an 8-2 A-C lead near the midway point of the first quarter.
Finally, while certainly stymied against the Annville-Cleona defense in the early going, Upper Dauphin was able to regain their footing somewhat in the aftermath of a take to the rack by way of Ben Hepler, cutting the Dutchmen lead in half, 8-4, with 3:20 still left in the first frame.
Yet that would all the closer Upper Dauphin would get at catching their hosts for the remainder of the contest.
Roughly two minutes later, the first A-C points of the night by someone other than Mr. Shay were finally tallied, by none other than the aforementioned Mr. Slabach ironically enough, as a Slabach triple helped create the initial waves of the late first quarter Dutchmen tsunami as A-C was able to close the opening eight minutes with a late explosion over the final minute and change to take a 16-8 lead with them into the second stanza.
But from the second quarter onward the rest of the way, it would prove to be nothing but unbridled Annville-Cleona domination.
As far as the specifics of it all went, A-C would go on to finish the final 24 minutes of play with an incredible 49-11 blitz to eventually invoke the mercy rule once inside the second half. But before they could get to that point, they had to create much more separation. In that regard, Tony Pena certainly did his part to assist in the effort as the 6’3 junior wing came away with a steal and subsequent bucket on the offensive end to allow the Dutchmen to double up their opposition at 20-10 with 5:20 left before recess.
And while he had perhaps been kept in check somewhat up until that point, Elisha Slabach quickly turned into Annville-Cleona’s version of the microwave for the remainder of the second quarter.
Case in point, a pair of triples sunk by the A-C sniper while being left alone beyond the arc by the UDA defense which preceded a separate 4-0 salvo from Slabach not long thereafter as the league’s leading scorer throughout the first few days of the season came away with a blistering 10 point addition that seemed to come within the blink of an eye to help clearly put this game out of reach before the half given the 35-13 count with inside of a minute left to play in the second stanza.
Yet if he wasn’t the one pouring it in from bonus distance, his fellow backcourt mate, Ben Morcom, just as quickly followed in Slabach’s contagious footsteps as the A-C senior guard proceeded to take his turn at knocking in a trey of his own inside the waning second quarter seconds as Morcom’s late bucket ushered both teams into the break with A-C making an incredible first impression in front of their home fans by virtue of the commanding 38-13 lead they possessed at the halftime break.
Speaking of the 3-ball, perhaps some of that prolific A-C shooting seemed to rub off on Upper Dauphin once the second half rolled around on Tuesday evening inside “The Barn.”
To their credit, while still being held down while amidst the ongoing Annville-Cleona avalanche flowing directly against them, the Trojans were able to find a bit of momentum in their favor once Tyler Erdley was able to fire one in from the beyond in the early going of the third period, albeit while only cutting the deficit down to a 40-16 difference at the time.
However, as far as the ones who largely triggered that basketball-version of a natural phenomenon against Upper Dauphin on this night? They too didn’t show any signs of stopping whatsoever.
Sure enough, Elisha Slabach continued to have the hot hand for Annville-Cleona in the second half as another of his four treys tallied on the night –en route to what for him had to be considered a rather routine 22-point showing once the dust had finally settled — made it a 47-16 Dutchmen cushion. From there, the one who seemed to start this whole thing off, Jon Shay, continued to remain just as potent inside as he had been during the opening half as a sweet turnaround move by the towering 6’3 junior big made it a 9-0 burst in A-C’s favor following the earlier Erdley triple for UDA, as Shay would go on to finish the night by posting a solid 15-point game to his credit.
Fittingly, and in perhaps the most apropos way possible, A-C would go on to finish the third quarter by bombing in a, you guessed it, 3-ball, as a trifecta tallied by way of Tony Pena helped send the hosts into the final period with the gargantuan benefit of a 56-18 lead at their collective backs.
Thinking A-C would cool off somewhat with the game already a formality at this stage? Oh no. Not even close.
With the handiwork of their fellow troops already having put this game well outside of shouting distance prior to the start of the final eight minutes that featured a running clock, Jayden Guerrido and Jake Zdazinski took to the floor in the final quarter for A-C and certainly demonstrated that they too are more than capable of performing when called upon. Case in point, Guerrido taking his turn at firing in a triple to begin the quarter’s proceedings by chipping in one of the Dutchmen’s nine team treys throughout the entirety of the ballgame before the other half of the A-C junior duo knocked in a triple of his own in the latter stages to make it a 62-19 ballgame with time running out.
And once the final gun ultimately came out, you’d have to consider that Tuesday night was nothing but yet another successful and sizable pelt secured by Annville-Cleona throughout the first week of the season by virtue of this 65-19 final triumph over Upper Dauphin on Tuesday night. A game which oh by the way, featured all A-C players who had dressed save for one being able to crack into the scoring column by the end of the night.
Afterwards, while understandably excited about the start to the season that his group had been able to put forth out of the chute, Annville-Cleona head man Jason Coletti still knew even after this impressive outing that there is more meat on the proverbial bone for this team to try and chew off as the year continues to evolve.
“We thought we’d be pretty good, but I don’t know if we’d think we’d be this good this soon honestly,” Coletti admitted candidly postgame following his team’s move up to 3-0 on the young season. “The kids gelled over the summer and into the fall. You could just see them getting tighter and more close-knit. Like, they really want to be here,” Coletti continued. “That matters. And they just keep getting better with every practice. Some guys (on his team) don’t have but three games of varsity experience. Shay and Elisha (Slabach) do which obviously helps calm everyone else down. That then allows the other guys to get their feet wet and gain more experience….We have a good team, but a tough road ahead too,” Coletti was just as quick to point out.
And as any coach will tell you, having someone in your lineup who it seems can pencil himself in for 20+ points on a nightly basis, at least up until this point mind you, will assuredly make any head man sleep all the more soundly. Fortunately for Coletti and crew, they appear to have such a luxury in Elisha Slabach.
“The thing we’re trying to get him to realize is that we have such unselfish players around him that he’s going to get the ball back. If he gives (the ball) up, it’s going to come back to him,” Coletti said of his prolific junior scorer. “We need him to score. We do. He got 30 (points) the other night on less shots. In the fourth quarter on Friday, he went off for like four of five (buckets) in a row. He’s capable of doing that,” Coletti added of Slabach. “He’s a streaky shooter, a volume shooter, and he has the green light,” he added with a laugh.
Lastly, having done this as long as he has now while at a few different stops along the way, rest assured that Jason Coletti knows full-well that with fast and impressive starts the likes of which his squad is currently riding on at the moment, the element of surprise has almost totally evaporated. Not that it’s the worst thing in the world though.
“Yeah, I know,” the A-C boss said nodding his head understandably when asked how attention and eyeballs figure to come in this team’s direction from here on out. “It’s almost like you wish the scores would’ve been a little bit closer margins because we could still sneak up on people,” he quipped. “People are going to be ready for us, but it’s nice to finally be on the other side of that now.”
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