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Balanced North Penn-Mansfield wins eighth straight and defeats South Williamsport

By Chris Masse 6 min read

Cooper Shaw provided free shooting lessons Wednesday night at South Williamsport, draining four 3-pointers and scoring first-quarter 14 points.

Shaw did not score again but it did not matter. All five North Penn-Mansfield starters are scoring threats. Slow down one player and others likely will take over. That certainly was the case against South, and it helped the Tigers keep going strong.

Karson Dominick scored 21 points, Brody Burleigh (17 points, 10 rebounds) produced a double-double and North Penn-Mansfield defeated South, 63-50. The Tigers (9-1) have won eight straight games and strengthened their hold on District 4 Class AAA’s top seed entering a Friday night showdown against rival Wellsboro.

“Everybody can score, and Coop can shoot the 3-ball,” Dominick said. “If someone is having an off night, somebody picks them up. We’re very balanced together as a team.”

They’re also a close-knit team.

Most of these players have competed together since they started playing basketball in kindergarten. They have played well at every step up the basketball ladder and could be in the process of producing their best season together. A team with four starters back from last year is off to its best start since 2016 and jumped all over South with Shaw’s flurry helping give North Penn-Mansfield a 28-11 lead.

Every starter can shoot, Burleigh is a tough matchup inside and Dominick is one of the area’s more versatile players. Andrew Green produces well off the bench and dealt four assists, while hitting one of the Tigers’ six first-quarter 3-pointers. Sam Lawrence ran the offense well and dealt a game-high six assists.

Individually, these are good players. Together, North Penn-Mansfield looks like a serious league and district title contender.

“Our chemistry is huge. We’re a family. We’re all together,” Dominick said. “Nobody points a finger, and everyone is together as one. We work that way, and we win that way.”

“They’re very unselfish and very close,” long-time North Penn-Mansfield coach Kipper Burleigh said. “What I like is everybody makes mistakes, but none of them point their finger or make a scene. They just pick each other up and make the next play.”

That is how the Tigers fought off repeated South comeback attempts. The Mounties played well over the final three quarters and pulled as close as seven late in the second, but North Penn-Mansfield never let it get any closer.

The Tigers started the third quarter strong and pushed a nine-point lead to 14. It generally stayed between 10-14 points throughout the remainder of the game until Lee Habalar scored six quick points and helped South cut it to 56-48 with 80 seconds remaining. Unfazed, Alex Davis (8 points, 8 rebounds) hit two free throws, Green found Burleigh for a layup and North Penn-Mansfield countered with game-clinching 7-0 run, finally quieting a large, boisterous crowd.

“They expect that if they pull together collectively, they’re going to be able to do it,” Kipper Burleigh said. “They have some confidence and some faith, that even when things go bad that we can turn it around.”

“We’re not really used to stuff like this, but we prepared for it, and we knew it was going to be a hostile environment,” Dominick said. “We just had to keep our mouths shut, stay composed and be poised on the court.”

Mission accomplished. North Penn-Mansfield jumped all over South in that first quarter, scoring at will. The Tigers made 6 of 9 3-point attempts and Burleigh scored four points inside. Players and the ball moved as one and North Penn-Mansfield consistently produced quality shots while immediately setting the tone.

South coach Joe Simon benched his starters for the opening two minutes of the second quarter, challenging them to pick up the intensity and it worked. The Mounties (3-6) outscored North Penn-Mansfield by four points over the final three quarters, but that early hole was too big to completely dig out of.

“We got on the guys pretty hard, and they responded pretty well,” Simon said. “We told them that basically that’s a one or two-point game down the stretch if you play the way you did in the last three quarters. There’s been many times the last two years where we’ve said that same story, so we have to find a way to start that first quarter better.”

Habalar scored a team-high 15 points, including 10 in the fourth quarter, and added four assists. Marquan Harris produced eight points and 11 rebounds and Aaron Akers also had eight points. Exerting so much energy trying to come back, however, may have impacted South’s shooting, and the Mounties made just 8 of 29 shots during the middle quarters.

South did receive a boost as point guard Ben Manning made his season debut after returning from injury. Harris and Akers also have battled injuries and South never really has been at full strength yet. The Mounties are a work in process but showed how dangerous they can be by beating Hughesville in the season opener, dropping a heartbreaker against St. John Neumann and basically playing the current top Class AAA seed to a draw over the final three quarters.

The pieces are there and now the Mounties are just trying to put them all together.

“The positives are once they ratchet it up and get that intensity level up, we can play with anybody,” Simon said. “We’ve had some injuries and maybe that’s the part not jelling is us not having the time together yet, but it doesn’t get any easier moving forward with our schedule, so they have to jell pretty quick.”

South limited North Penn-Mansfield to four second quarter points, but the Tigers regrouped, stuck together and led by double digits almost the entire third quarter. After North Penn-Mansfield opened the game with the outside shooting leading the way, Dominick did damage off the dribble and in the paint that quarter, scoring eight points.

“As long as we get buckets, that’s all that matters,” Dominick said. “That’s all we want.”

NP-MANSFIELD (63)

Karson Dominick 6 8-11 21, Brody Burleigh 8 1-2 17, Sam Lawrence 0 0-1 0, Cooper Shaw 5 0-0 14, Alex Davis 1 6-6 8, Andrew Green 1 0-0 3, Cade Kurzejewski 0 0-0 0. Totals 21 15-20 63.

SOUTH (50)

Lee Habalar 5 5-6 15, Marquan Harris 3 2-4 8, Aaron Akers 4 0-0 8, Caden Harris 3 0-0 7, Alex Neidig 3 0-0 6, Radley Knapp 1 0-0 2, Ben Manning 1 1-2 4, Dylan Scheller 0 0-0 0, Jordan Baier 0 0-2 0, Zach Lynn 0 0-0 0. Totals 20 8-14 50.

NPM 28 4 12 19-63

South 11 12 9 18-50

3-pointers: NP-Mansfield 6 (Shaw 4, Dominick, Green); South 2 (C. Harris, Manning).

Records: North Penn-Mansfield 9-1. South 3-6.

Starting at /week.