All the little things add up to biggest win of the season for Bulldogs
2023 Berks basketball coverage presented by
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Cam Zullinger clearly understands his role on the basketball floor. He’s not the tallest or the quickest; he’s not expected to take big shots or handle the ball against pressure.
Friday he was the third player off Wilson’s bench.
At the end, in the biggest game in the Berks Conference so far this season, he was on the floor in overtime. He made a basket. He grabbed a rebound. He was there in the final seconds to help tie up the Muhls’ top scorer, Alex Collado, preventing a game-winning shot. And the Bulldogs held on, 57-56.
“(My role) is about doing the little things,” he said after the Bulldogs (2-0, 7-1) won their sixth straight by dodging a pair of bullets, one at the end of regulation, one in OT.
The Muhls (1-1, 6-3) had a couple of chances to take the first key battle of the season in Division I; they had the final possession of each of the last two periods.
“We hang our hat on defense,” said the 6-foot, 185-pound Zullinger, who does that in the fall as a linebacker on the football team. “We’re not the biggest, so we’ve gotta make it work on defense: Sit there and just guard.”
Zullinger was in there at the end because he can do that.
“He’s tough,” said Wilson coach Matt Coldren. “That’s what he brings to us. We had certain guys we wanted on (Shermar Killen, one of Muhlenberg’s top threats), and he was one of them.”
Zullinger scored six points, including a basket with 1:57 left in OT to extend Wilson’s lead to 56-52 – as big a cushion as it had all night. He grabbed six rebounds. He had a couple of assists, both late in the first half as the Bulldogs dug out of an early seven-point hole and went into halftime tied 27-27.
It went back-and-forth the rest of the way. It was tied nine times, the last when Collado, who finished with a team-high 15 points, scored in transition to make it 56-56 with 44 seconds remaining.
Gruber gave his team the final lead with 21 seconds left, hitting the second half of a two-shot foul. After that the Bulldogs played defense.
“Everybody’s gotta do their roles, (know) who’s doing what,” Zullinger said. “It’s not about being the main scorer: We’ve got two of those. We’ve got Correll (Akings), we’ve got Madyx.”
Gruber did the scoring early, with seven first-quarter points. Akings, one of the top sophomores in the league, took over in the second quarter when he hit three straight baskets. That lit the fuse for a career-high 23 points.
“I felt very confident after my shots started to fall, and it just kept going and going and I kept feeling better and better about myself,” Akings said.
After Killen, who finished with 13 points, scored to give Muhlenberg a two-point lead with 35 seconds left in regulation Akings answered, tying the game on a drive with 11 seconds left.
He had nine points in the fourth quarter, 16 after intermission. This performance, Coldren said, is only the tip of the iceberg.
“He is a good basketball player,” Coldren said. “People haven’t seen it yet.”
The Muhls led by as many as seven points late in the third quarter but Akings brought the Bulldogs back. He opened the fourth quarter with a 3-pointer and scored seven points over the first 2 ½ minutes of the quarter to put Wilson ahead.
The Muhls easily could’ve won but hurt themselves at the foul line, missing 10-of-21 shots. The Bulldogs missed half as many.
“We had the chances, but the ball didn’t drop for us tonight,” said Muhlenberg coach Matt Flowers. “We’ve been elevating our game for the past two weeks; I thought we’ve been playing pretty good. Today would’ve been a great statement if the ball would’ve fallen our way; it didn’t.”
Flowers knows this was the first of what could be many tight finishes in league play. Reading High in Berks I and Berks Catholic and Exeter in Berks II seem to be evenly matched, as are Wilson and Muhlenberg.
“It’s about any given day, and tonight the Bulldogs won,” Flowers said. “They played a helluva game, so did the Muhls – they just came out one point on top.”
“We know how good our league is,” Coldren said. “We’ve gotta be ready to play every night. Tonight we were fortunate. I’m hoping we matured tonight. Other than Madyx, this is the first experience that those (other) guys have had in a game like this.
“I don’t think we played a great game but as the third quarter went on we got a little more confident and we did better. I’m hoping this was a great learning experience for our young guys.”
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | OT | Final | |
| Muhlenberg | 15 | 12 | 16 | 9 | 4 | 56 |
| Wilson | 9 | 18 | 11 | 14 | 5 | 57 |
| Muhls (6-3) | FG | FT | 3’s | A | R | Points |
| Kantner | 3-9 | 2-2 | 1-2 | 1 | 3 | 9 |
| Archie | 4-6 | 2-7 | 0-0 | 1 | 3 | 10 |
| Miller | 2-8 | 2-2 | 1-4 | 1 | 5 | 7 |
| Killen | 4-12 | 5-10 | 0-1 | 1 | 7 | 13 |
| Collado | 7-14 | 0-0 | 1-3 | 1 | 3 | 15 |
| Leclair | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| Marte | 1-2 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 4 | 2 |
| Zabala | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Martinez | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Totals | 21-52 | 11-21 | 3-10 | 6 | 28/31 | 56 |
| Bulldogs (7-1) | FG | FT | 3’s | A | R | Points |
| Gruber | 5-12 | 1-4 | 1-2 | 3 | 6 | 12 |
| T. Hunsicker | 0-3 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 1 | 5 | 0 |
| Etim | 3-7 | 1-2 | 1-5 | 1 | 2 | 8 |
| Akings | 8-15 | 5-6 | 2-6 | 1 | 7 | 23 |
| Levan | 1-4 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| McFadden | 2-4 | 2-2 | 0-2 | 1 | 3 | 6 |
| C. Hunsicker | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Zullinger | 3-5 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 2 | 6 | 6 |
| Twiford | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Totals | 22-51 | 9-14 | 4-17 | 9 | 32/35 | 57 |
Turnovers: Muhlenberg 8, Wilson 14. Team rebounds: Muhlenberg 3, Wilson 3.
