BERLIN, Pa. — Fort Hill couldn’t have asked for a tougher first game, and it certainly got one.
The Sentinels struggled to find a rhythm offensively, and when they did find one, Berlin star Pace Prosser always had an answer. When it was all said and done, Prosser’s scoring total stood at 37, more than three times the next-closest output.
After 20 competitive minutes, Prosser and Berlin eventually ran away with it, handing the Sentinels a 66-55 defeat on Monday night.
“I thought we got tired, I thought our focus was lacking,” Fort Hill head coach Thad Burner said. “I thought we allowed them to dictate our mentality a lot. They did some super great things. No. 22 (Prosser), he was phenomenal tonight, but we didn’t do anything to prevent that from happening.”
A trip from Cumberland over the Mason-Dixon line and up past Wellersburg Mountain to Berlin, Pennsylvania, is like a journey through a basketball time machine. Nestled in a tiny gymnasium — with bleachers so close the court the players sit in the first row — is a team that’s now 77-11 over the last four years and 35-3 at home during that span.
Fort Hill gave the Mountaineers a scare, going on a 12-3 run to level the score at 30-all at the break, but Berlin exploited the Sentinels’ legs in transition with a series of run-outs to lead 51-42 going into the fourth.
While Fort Hill did better at running Prosser off the ball after the junior exploded for 24 points during the first half, Berlin’s supporting cast came to life to swell its lead to as high as 19 in the fourth period.
Fort Hill pulled its starters with 2:58 remaining. Not too long after, Berlin (4-0) followed suit.
“We were sloppy at times, didn’t take care of the ball real great, but I thought defensively in the second half we were a lot better,” Berlin head coach Tanner Prosser said. “I know those guys, it’s their first game coming off of football season. They’re a really talented team, I’m sure they’ll get better.
“For us, it was a good opportunity to play a really good, athletic, physical team.”
Berlin punched Fort Hill in the mouth early, as its defense, which switched on everything up top and limited penetration inside, held the Sentinels without a field goal for more than six minutes during the first quarter.
Trailing 12-3, Deshaun Brown ended the bucket drought with a trey with 55 second left, and Tony Palmisano sunk a three at the buzzer to pull Fort Hill within 14-9 after one.
Owen Seifarth, Palmisano and Brown all finished tough lay-ups at the rim early in the ensuing period to cap a 12-3 Fort Hill run of its own to tie the score at 15, but Pace Prosser countered with a personal 7-0 flurry.
Fort Hill didn’t get flustered, and the Sentinels took their first lead when Steven Spencer converted an old fashioned 3-point play to make it 30-28 with 19 second left.
Berlin hit on the other end to level the score at 30 at intermission.
The Sentinels were without the services of Seifarth, their tallest post player at 6-foot-5, for large stretches of the first half due to foul trouble. He eventually fouled out in the fourth.
Eighty percent of Berlin’s offensive production during the opening half came by way of Prosser, who finished the game with five 3-pointers and made 14 of 15 free throws.
“He can create his own shot, he can hit step-backs, he gets to the foul line, he finishes at the rim,” Burner said of Prosser. “He didn’t miss very often. What we saw on film, this wasn’t a fluke. That’s him every single time out.”
Berlin showed its ability to adapt out of the halftime locker room. When Fort Hill did get hot in the third — Burns hit a pair of 3s; he finished with a team-high 12 points — the Mountaineers caught the Sentinels with a series of uncontested lay-ups the other way in transition.
“The way they were playing with the pressure and press and trying to get the ball out of our guards early, if we ran the floor and looked up we were going to have some stuff,” Tanner Prosser said. “I thought our guys ran the floor really hard. … They hit some shots in the second half too so we needed to do that.”
Fort Hill limited Pace Prosser to just three points in the third, but his teammates combined for 18 in the period — three times their production during the first half.
Craig Jarvis was second on Berlin with nine points, followed by Ryan Blubaugh with eight and Holby McClucas at six.
“Everybody did a great job of playing their roles in the second half,” Tanner Prosser said. “We got the ball where we wanted to get it a lot of times. We had everybody doing their job.”
Pace Prosser got hot again in the fourth with 10 points, and Fort Hill eventually ran out of steam.
Spencer joined Burns in double figures with 10 points off the bench. Jabril Daniels ended with seven, Brown tallied six, Palmisano scored five and Mikey Allen, Seifarth and Camron Banks each chipped in four.
Fort Hill (0-1) will look to right the ship at the Maryland School for the Deaf on Thursday at 6 p.m. The Sentinels’ first game locally is against Broadfording at Allegany College of Maryland on Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
“This isn’t a bad thing,” Burner said. “We don’t want to lose, but I think there’s some positive to come out of this.”