By Tim Mastro

SMYRNA — There are certain realities learned when coaching through a pandemic says Smyrna High boys’ basketball coach Andrew Mears.

Sometimes you can practice, other times the gym is closed for a deep cleaning. Some teams get to start their preseason earlier as others wait on school district approval.

But, through it all, Smyrna is one of only two teams in the state still left playing.

The sixth-seeded Eagles (19-0) will meet top seed Sanford School (15-2) today at Dover High for a 4:30 p.m. tipoff with the DIAA state championship on the line. Attendance is limited to two pre-approved spectators per player due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The game can be seen on-line on the NFHS Network for a fee.

Mears credits this year’s team motto for helping the Eagles through all the uncertainty.

“We say, ‘We all we got, we all we need,’” Mears said. “Through life circumstances there’s a lot of stuff happening. We can’t control it all. Some days we got to shut the gym down, other days we’re good to go.

“There’s nothing else that will contribute to us except this group who is together. So we’re all we got, we’re all we need.”

There were some points when the entire season was in doubt as winter sports waited for the Delaware Division of Public Health to approve a plan for indoor sports. Some states, like Maryland, ended up canceling its seasons.

When a plan was approved, the Eagles had to wait a little longer as they weren’t able to hold their first practice until Dec. 21 once they received clearance from their school district.

“Not being able to have a season my last year, that definitely would have broken my heart,” said senior forward Olumuyiwa ‘Moo’ Salako. “I knew that since we got to have a season this year, I have to give it my all. Thank God for every opportunity that we got.”

“Nobody thought we would be here,” said junior guard Majesti Carter. “We knew we would be, but no one else did.”

Smyrna enters the state title game unbeaten at 19-0 overall. The last time an undefeated team played for a championship was 2019 when Dover fell to Sanford.

That was the most recent championship game held as the start of the pandemic forced the 2020 tournament to be canceled before the semifinals.

It is the third time in the last five years Smyrna has reached the title game. The Eagles won in 2017 over Caravel but lost the 2018 game to St. Elizabeth.

The run to the 2018 game featured a semifinal victory over Sanford. Salako was a freshman on varsity that season — the only current Eagle to suit up in a championship contest.

“It’s an honor,” Salako said. “I saw the work they put in, everything they went through and the adversity they saw those years. It’s definitely an honor to have the opportunity again.”

Smyrna is seeking to become just the third Henlopen Conference team to win multiple boys’ basketball titles after Cape Henlopen (1975, 1976) and Indian River (1980, 1981). When the Eagles won in 2017, they were the first Henlopen Conference squad to do so since the 1997 Seaford High team.

Only four other Henlopen teams reached the title game between 1997 and 2015. But with Smyrna’s three recent appearances, plus Polytech in 2015 and Dover in 2019, five of the last six state championship games will have included a Henlopen school.

“We worked for this,” Salako said. “We knew that coming in this year we weren’t going to be seen as a team that could go to the state championship. Now getting there, I feel like we definitely have a point to prove and a statement to make.”