Antietam’s Jovan Hollis hoping to add to gold collection

Jovan Hollis wore his Exeter Eagles football championship T-shirt to Antietam basketball practice Friday afternoon.

Maybe it was a coincidence, or maybe it was a subliminal thought, reminding him that he and the Mounts can claim a similar gold medallion when they meet Lancaster Mennonite for the District 3 Class 2A basketball championship Saturday at 12:45 at Giant Center.

Hollis was a starting outside linebacker last fall when the Eagles upset Gov. Mifflin in the District 3 Class 5A football championship. The Antietam junior played for the Eagles as part of a cooperative sponsorship program between the schools.

He would love to have a matching set of gold medals.

“That would be amazing,” Hollis said. “Hopefully I can make that happen.”

The Mounts (20-4) are the No. 1 seed and have put together a terrific season, one of the best in years at the school. Still, most look at the third-seeded Blazers (15-9) as the favorite to win back-to-back titles.

Their record isn’t impressive and they don’t have 1,000-point scorer Cole Fisher, a second-team All-State pick, one of three graduated starters.

They do have dynamic junior Camden Hurst, a second-team All-State pick who wrecked the Mounts with a spectacular 32-point performance in last year’s championship game. He hit 10-of-14 shots from the field and went 9-for-9 at the foul line.

The Blazers had a good offseason, too, picking Jaedon Mast from Brooklyn, N.Y.; he’s averaging 11.5 points per game, second on the team to Hurst’s 18.7.

Mennonite is battle-tested: It has played a rugged schedule that includes losses to Class 5A District 3 champion Lampeter-Strasburg, District 3 Class 4A champ Berks Catholic and two losses to Columbia, which plays for the Class 3A title Saturday. It beat Class 5A finalist Shippensburg and Class 2A finalist Antietam 74-65 in December.

The Blazers also beat the Mounts in last year’s final, 80-67. Hector Tiburcio, the highest-scoring player in Antietam history with 1,397 points (second-most in program history), knows every detail of that game. He has watched it numerous times.

He remembers the Mounts falling behind by 14 points in the first half, then storming all the way back to tie the game 60-60 with 6 1/2 minutes left. Tiburcio was at his best in that game, scoring 29 points.

“If we would’ve started out that game better we would’ve had a better chance,” he said. “The whole game we were digging out of the hole.”

He’s been counting the days for this rematch.

“Before the season I knew it was going to be us two again,” he said. “I was confident that we’d get there again, and I was pretty sure they’d get there again.”

The Mounts, with Tiburcio leading the team in scoring average (16.6) for the third straight year, began this season 14-1, the lone loss coming at Mennonite.

They won a division title for the first time in seven years. They’ve won 20 games for the first time since 1994. Now they’d like to win a district championship for the first time since 1972, when the school was named Mount Penn.

They’ve reached the championship game four times since then, three of them in Tiburcio’s career. He was on the floor when they lost to Steel-High 92-57 his freshman year.

“I have two second-place (medals) at home and I’m ready to bring home the gold,” he said after beating Greenwood in the semifinals.

Tiburcio says this is the best Antietam team he’s played on. Coach Mike Green agrees.

“I have better athletes all over the floor than I had last year,” he said.

One of them is 6-3 sophomore Josh McKoy, who is averaging 15.7 points and has a team-leading 22 3-pointers.

“We’re coming into this game more confident than we were (last year),” Tiburcio said. “That’s a plus. We have kids that are athletic, that want to win. That’ll also give us a bonus.”

The football toughness the 6-2 Hollis brings is a reason Tiburcio is more confident.

“After his football season, he came back way stronger, way more aggressive,” Tiburcio said. “We have no true big man, but the second half of the season he’s really become that big man that we need. He (shuts) down the opposing big man, gets the rebound, does the hustle plays. He’s a big factor in our success this year.”

“I don’t think he’ll be intimidated (in the big atmosphere),” Green said. “He played in a big game in the fall so that’s definitely going to help him.”

Hollis is steady on the court. Playing in a big arena for the first time shouldn’t affect him much.

“It helps that I’ve been in that environment before,” he said, looking back to football, “so I know what to expect. I’ll just try to be a leader for the guys that weren’t there before.”