William Penn Defeats Caesar Rodney To Capture 3rd State Title

Omar Skinner (#32) steals the ball and takes it the other way for the slam dunk during William Penn's state championship match-up against #1 seed Caesar Rodney. (Photo by Rob Tornoe)

The #2 seed William Penn Colonials (22-4) jumped out to a 16-3 lead over the #1 seed Caesar Rodney Riders (24-3) and never looked back en route to a 67-54 victory in the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association Boys State Basketball Championship Game at the University of Delaware’s Bob Carpenter Center on Saturday. The win marks the third state basketball title overall for William Penn, and their first since 2001.

Though he played only 18 of the game’s 32 minutes for the Colonials, no one contributed more decisively to their victory than senior point guard Thomas Davis, who led all scorers with 22 points on 10-15 shooting from the floor. What is remarkable is that nearly all of his points came in the low post, which is not only unusual for a point guard, but quite difficult to predict when going against Caesar Rodney’s twin towers—6’7” seniors Lawrence Livingston (12 points, 10 rebounds) and Tyshawn Bell (16 points, 5 rebounds).

Davis scored 10 points and set up another basket off of a steal in leading the Colonials to a 20-6 start, before sitting for the last 7:09 of the half with two fouls.

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“Davis is a football player, he will go in there and work the post with the big guys and be physical,” said Colonials coach Michael Sanford. “He’s been doing it all year.” Added William Penn senior Omar Skinner: “Thomas Davis is all heart, he’s non-stop.”

If the Riders were getting beat under the basket despite their size, the William Penn players knew why.

“We let [Devon] Dorsey bring the ball up, and draw [Lawrence] Livingston out to guard him,” said Colonials senior captain Vern Robinson. “Then we put Bri [senior forward Brian Oliver] in the corner to draw out Tyshawn Bell, and Davis made plays inside.”

Though they were down early, Caesar Rodney seemed to play the Colonials fairly evenly for the rest of the game, if one were simply to look at the quarter-by-quarter scoring. Those would be deceiving without context, however—the Riders shot a woeful 4 of 22 from three-point range for the game, while the Colonials went 0 for 4.

“They [Caesar Rodney] play inside-outside—they don’t shoot many mid-range jump-shots, and I think they kind of shot themselves out of the game with the threes,” said Sanford.

Penn’s lead ballooned to 16 points early in the fourth quarter, and while the Riders never stopped playing hard, whittling away at the lead, in the end the Colonials were just too tenacious. “We just tried to find mismatches for our team and make plays when we had to,” said Skinner, who finished with 10 points, 6 rebounds, and, for the second consecutive game, a momentum-changing fast-break dunk.

The Colonials strategy was sound and their intensity never wavered, yet one person was still coming to grips with victory after the game. “I can’t even take it in yet,” said Sanford.