Mar 31, 2020 6 min read

The “When Sports Were Played” for today goes back exactly 36 years, to March 31, 1984, when Washington High School won its first boys basketball state championship.

HERSHEY – On this final day of March, Washington High School went out like a lion. Surely, these guys will be remembered as the Little Team That Roared.

Washington won its first state basketball championship here at Hersheypark Arena Saturday afternoon, 45-43, over Delone Catholic. Junior center Brian Davis, at 6-0 the tallest player in the Little Presidents’ starting lineup, stole an inbounds pass and scored the winning field goal with 20 seconds to play.

Davis’ heroics capped a season which encountered cynics at nearly every turn, a season which nonetheless saw the Little Presidents accomplish what no other Class AA team in Pennsylvania could.

“Before we leave the locker room,” said coach Ron Faust, “there’s always one person who says ‘Let’s prove that they’re wrong’ or ‘Let’s show them we can win it.’ That’s something they would repeat not because it’s in their minds but because somebody’s placed it there. It certainly wasn’t us.”

Faust projected quiet confidence from start to finish, and by the time Saturday’s memorable finish was acted out before 5,124 fans, it was evident that confidence had found a home in the psyche of his players.

Washington (30-3) began the game poorly and trailed by as many as 10 points before Delone (27-4) took a 29-21 halftime lead. Yet the Little Presidents stormed back into the game by outscoring the Squires, 16-2, with an incredible third quarter that saw Washington play inspired defense and Delone shoot an amazing 8.3 percent (one-for-12) from the floor.

“Our season hasn’t been all roses – don’t get me wrong,” Faust said. ‘It’s not that I don’t have conflicts with some players, and they’re not mad at me and I’m not at them on occasions. But when we go in at halftime, we look at each other in the eyes.

“I looked them in the eyes and told them I thought the other team was taking the game away from them. They were more aggressive than we were, and they wanted it more. We were fortunate there was another half to go in the game. We wanted to make a better showing.”

Junior guard Chris Popeck, who finished with a game-high 12 points, scored six and junior point guard Tony Ellis four in the third quarter to help Washington to a 37-31 lead with just eight minutes to play. Junior guard Andy Singer’s layup with 2:42 to play in the third quarter was all the offense Delone could manage.

“I couldn’t ask for any more from the kids in the first half,” Squires coach Dave Zinn said. “I thought they did a super, super job. In the second half, the ball just wasn’t dropping early for us, and we got a little tight. We just got away from the things that were working for us in the first half. We didn’t keep our composure.”

The most curious thing about the game’s opening half was that Washington displayed only flashes of its heralded quickness. The Little Presidents’ fast break was hindered by Delone’s 60.6 percent shooting (12-for-20), but their established desire for a fast-paced game was missing.

“We were as little nervous at the beginning of the game,” Davis said. “This was our first time playing here in the finals, and we wanted to bring it home so bad I don’t think we knew what we were doing, we were so fired up.”

Whatever the reason, the first half was played at the Squires’ tempo. Senior guard Chad Poist scored nine of his team-high 11 points and senior guard Harry Kuhn eight in the opening 16 minutes for Delone.

“That’s what we wanted – we wanted to control the tempo,” Zinn said, “and I thought we did that for basically the entire game. But in the third quarter, we only scored two points, and when you only score two points in a quarter you know you’re going to have trouble.”

Said Singer, who committed two early fouls and missed 7:07 of the first half, “I guess when you take mostly perimeter shots, you live and die by the jumper. In the first half, we lived by it. In the third quarter, it killed us.”

Still, the Squires didn’t quit. They scored the first six points of the fourth quarter to tie the game, 37-37, with 5:24 to play, and suddenly the momentum had shifted again. After Ellis converted two free throws, his ninth and 10 points of the game, to restore Washington’s two-point lead, junior forward Eric Staub hit a jumper and Poist followed with a fast-break layup to give Delone a 41-39 lead with 4:06 remaining.

After Washington senior forward Mark Wise tied the game by scoring the last of his eight points on a jumper with 3:17 to go, Delone went to a slowdown. Kuhn gave the Squires a two-point lead with only 1:26 to go, and Washington then committed its 18th turnover of the game before senior guard Jamie LeMon fouled Staub with 29 seconds to play.

Staub, however, missed the front end of his one-and-one and Popeck raced downcourt with the rebound. He was fouled by Kuhn and then calmly sank both ends of his one-and-one to tie the game and set the stage for Davis’ dramatic steal.

Delone’s last-second effort to tie the game went awry as Singer was forced to take an 18-foot jumper that never touched the rim.

“It’s unbelievable, it really is, just to be here,” Faust said.

“I don’t think this will hit us until next week. I just hope that in this world we’re in, instead of having to run around or have some other situations, with school or clubs they’re involved in, the chores that they have every day … I hope all of these kids have a chance to sit down for a couple of minutes and really look this over from a personal standpoint and consider what they have done. I think they’ll be awe-struck when they get finished.”