Stephen Wilson believes that the Dover High School boys basketball team carries with it an unfair reputation.
That reputation shrugs off expectation and success, while magnifying losses and bumps in the road that is the 20-game season, the Senator head coach said.
And so when Dover (8-3, 6-1) lost a winnable game to Milford (9-3, 9-3) 80-74, Jan. 5, Wilson said he started hearing all the same things that surround his team — overrated; mistake-prone; not a challenger.
“A lot of times, when Dover has a little bit of a setback in one way or another, they’re not good or they’re overrated,” he said. “But when another team has one it’s just written off as a bad day. It doesn’t seem like we’re allowed to make mistakes or do things out of our character.”
The Senators only had to listen to their critics for a short time though, when after beating Polytech, 66-53, Jan. 22, they established that on any given night, they could beat the best the state has to offer.
The Panthers (10-2, 8-1) have been regarded this year as the best downstate team and in the top five in the state. They entered the game against Dover without a loss instate.
Senior Pieter Prinsloo, Dover’s 6-foot-10-inch center, said it was a statement win for his team and a step toward being the top dog in Delaware basketball.
“All week the game was getting hyped up,” Prinsloo said. “It was a good game to go in and put up a victory. Everyone was starting to think that we were slacking off and that Dover was just an average team.
“We’re working hard to get better every day and prove we’re one of the best teams in the state.”
While the win makes a case for Wilson’s team to be considered among the state’s elite, he said it’s only a small achievement in an otherwise long season.
“They’re very happy about the win but they know they didn’t go out and win a championship. They won a basketball game,” he said. “It was a rival game and it was against a team that was No. 1 downstate. But these kids have been working hard to put themselves in this position.”
It was encouraging, Wilson added, to see his team rise up in a game that would heavily factor into who would play for the Henlopen Conference championship at the end of the season.
