By Andy Walter

NEWARK — Somewhere in the middle of it all, when things weren’t going Dover High’s way, Denim Perkins said he and Dorell Little made up their minds.

The Senators’ two seniors weren’t going to give up their chance at a state championship without a fight.

“Me and him, we just huddled,” said Perkins, Dover’s point guard. “We just said, for us to win it, we’ve just got to go. We can’t wait for everybody else to get involved. We’ve just got to go ourselves and take over the team.”

The results were remarkable.

With Little and Perkins scoring all but one of the Senators’ 33 second-half points, the No. 2 Senators rallied to stun No. 4 Salesianum, 56-53, in the DIAA boys’ basketball state finals played before a raucous sellout crowd at the Carpenter Center on Saturday evening.

After five heartbreaking losses in the state title game, dating back to 1972, the hard-earned victory finally gave the Senators their long dreamed-of first state crown in a sport they take a great deal of pride in.

The Dover crowd erupted as the final buzzer sounded and the players mobbed each other on the court.

“It feels amazing,” Perkins, with a championship medal around his neck, said with a big smile. “Honestly it didn’t hit me (at first). But when it did, it hit. It’s an amazing feeling, man.

“We knew we had to rise to the occasion,” he added “Dover, they said we don’t rise, we don’t play up to the standard. But today we proved that we did.”

With the fans from both sides often roaring in the arena, the Senators (23-2) netted 12 of the game’s final 17 points to secure the crown.

Dover led 56-50 before the Sals’ Isaiah Hynson hit a running three-pointer at the buzzer. But it was too little, too late as the Senators knocked off a Sallies’ squad (15-9) that was playing in the state finals for the fourth straight year.

Little poured in a game-high 31 points. He then capped off his day by leaping out to block a three-point attempt by the Sals’ Kareem Thomas with just 11.2 seconds left and the Senators’ clinging to a 53-50 lead.

Little hit one free throw before Perkins hit two more with just 2.7 seconds remaining to give the cushion it ended up needing.

A  transfer from Polytech, Little played hard from the start but couldn’t buy a basket early on. He was 0-for-7 in the first quarter but then made 14 of his last 22 shots.

“I started off slow,” said Little. “But my team had trust in me and told me to keep going. So that’s what I did.

“It was our last game, we had to go all out," he said about himself and Perkins. "We had to put the team on our back and the coaches trusted us to do that.”

Even, though, it was his first season playing for Dover, Little said he knew how much winning a state championship meant to the school and the community.

“All the alums, they had our backs,” he said. “They had trust in us. It feels good to win one for them.

“Our coach said, this is for them. They’ve been here before.”

Perkins, all 5-foot-7 of him, collected 16 points, eight assists, eight rebounds and four steals. He made 6-of-7 free throws on Saturday and was a combined 14-of-15 from the foul line in the semifinals and finals.

The day started off anything but promising for the Senators.

Sallies netted the game’s first eight points. Dover didn’t get its first basket until Perkins hit a jumper with 3:26 left in the first quarter.

After falling behind 20-9, though, the Senators started finding their footing in the second quarter. They got a break when Perkins stole the ball and was fouled immediately with just 1.4 seconds remaining before halftime.

Perkins sank the two resulting free throws to close within 27-22 at intermission.

Dover finally took its first lead at 38-37 when Perkins made a tough driving layup with 1:20 left in the third quarter. After that, there were three more lead changes and four ties.

The Senators ended up holding the lead for just 3:49 of the 32-minute contest.
But Dover played its best when it mattered most.

A driving basket from Little gave the Senators the lead for good at 52-50 with 1:13 on the clock.

A steal by Noah Allen and JayVion Denis with 56.2 remaining gave the Senators the chance to run off much of the clock while forcing the Sals to foul.

Allen, whose three older brothers all played for Dover, ended up being the first one to win a state crown. With Allen being a senior, this was the last chance.

“It feels amazing,” said Allen, who made several key inbounds passes in the final minute. “What can they (his brothers) say? They did everything else but they don’t have a ring. They don’t have a championship.

“There were 20 seconds on the clock, I looked up and we’re up four and we kept possession of the ball. That’s when I realized we did it.”

For Dover coach Stephen Wilson, who was in his third state title game, Saturday was a moment he’d long worked for.

He knows some of the Dover players from the 1972 team, which lost a crushing one-point game to Wilmington on a last-second shot.

“It’s probably going to feel even better when I get home,” said Wilson. “I never thought we were out of the game. I wanted to make sure they knew I was not giving up on them. I believe in them.

“It’s kind of amazing. It’ll sink in. I guess I’ve just got to sit back and relish it.”

Free throws

Sophomore Tarrance Williams, who spent last season on Sallies’ freshman team, hit a free throw with 28.7 seconds left to account for Dover’s only other second-half point not scored by Perkins or Little. ... Thomas had 18 points to lead Sallies with Hynson adding 15. ... Dover ended the season on a 15-game winning streak. ... The Senators sank only 1-of-12 three-pointers with the one coming from Little. It pulled the Senators within 36-34 with 2:57 left in the third quarter. ... Perkins had 18 assists in the two Final Four games.

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

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