By Andy Walter

DOVER — Dover High’s girls’ basketball players have never had to look too far for a history lesson.

A banner in the Senators’ gym lists the only two years that Dover won a Henlopen Conference title in the sport: 1978 and 2007.

Once it looked like the Senators were going to win the Henlopen North, Dover coach Jahi Davenport started talking to his players about their place in history.

“At the end of every practice we just looked up here at the numbers,” he said, “and realized, hey, this could be us.”

While it definitely wasn’t easy, the Senators earned their place in school history, out-dueling South champion Woodbridge, 65-48, for just their third Henlopen crown on Saturday afternoon.

After the Blue Raiders rallied to tie the score at 48-48 midway through the fourth quarter, Dover reeled off the final 17 points to put away the victory.
Senior point guard Ashtyn Torbert tossed the ball into the air at midcourt as she and her teammates hugged each other in celebration.

“It feels amazing, amazing.” said Torbert. “Being a senior and working your tail off for four years and finally getting to be put up on a banner feels good. We’re part of history now.”

“It’s been a while,” said junior Sara Benson. “We knew this is what we needed to do this season. This was our goal.

“It’s definitely a big deal. Being able to get it done has led us here.”

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Dover (17-4) never trailed in the contest after jumping out to an 8-1 lead to start it. The Senators then went up by as many as 14 points in the third quarter.

But the Blue Raiders (16-5) battled back to tie the score twice in the fourth quarter. Woodbridge knotted the score at 48-48 with 4;22 left when freshman A’niyah Taylor scored on a putback.

Dover, though, was determined not to let the championship slip away.

“We said we’ve got to keep going, we’ve got to finish the game,” said Benson. “We didn’t come all this way for nothing. We put all this work in and it was about to go down the drain.

“We had to do what we had to do. We kept our composure and we kept playing our game.”

Benson got position inside, took a pass from Torbert and scored to give the Senators back the lead for good at 50-48 with 3:30 on the clock.

Benson tallied eight of Dover’s final 17 points before finishing with a team-high 19 points. She was 7-of-7 from the foul line and pulled down several big rebounds.

“We kind of went back to traditional Dover ball (in the second half) and had to get the ball to her,” said Davenport.

Amani Sudler added five points in that closing stretch with Torbert scoring the other four. Torbert, who hit three second-half three-pointers, finished with 15 points with Lily Harper scoring 11.

“We stayed focused, disciplined,” said Torbert. “We knew this game was the biggest game of the year and we just had to finish the job. I’ve wanted this for four years so I wasn’t going to let that (losing) happen.”

Woodbridge ended up missing its final five shots and committing seven turnovers down the stretch. Senior standout Reghan Robinson tallied 14 of her game-high 20 points in the second half.

Taylor, one of five freshmen on the Blue Raiders’ roster, added 10 points.
For the Senators, Saturday’s victory gave them the chance to celebrate what has been a memorable season. After the game, Davenport was named the Henlopen Coach of the Year.

Dover will open the DIAA state tournament as the 10th seed on Wednesday. But that next challenge could wait as the Senators posed for photos on Saturday.

“It means a great deal for our seniors who have stuck it out for all four years,” said Davenport. “Now girls want to be part of a winning team so hopefully we can continue the legacy and get girls to come out and participate in more sports — especially basketball.”

Sports editor Andy Walter can be reached at awalter@iniusa.org. Follow on X at @DSNsports.