X marks the spot as Muhlenberg opens basketball season with impressive win
NEFFSVILLE — J’Daniel Mosquera, an all-division guard and Muhlenberg’s top returning scorer, took two shots in the first half Friday in the Muhls’ season-opener.
It’s not like he wasn’t looking to score, or that Central Dauphin’s defenders were denying him the ball so well. The savvy senior saw what was going on around him and didn’t want to mess with the karma.
“I wanted to feed the hot hand,” he said. ” ‘X’ was going off.”
Xzayvion Robertson, his backcourt mate, was indeed going off. Robertson knocked down a 3-pointer in the opening minute to give the Muhls the lead for good, added another later in the opening quarter and never let up, pouring in a game-high 26 points in a 70-59 victory in the opening round of the Manheim Township Tip-Off Tournament.
The Muhls will play Columbia, a 55-43 win over Manheim Township, Saturday at 7:30 in the championship game.
Robertson, a 5-11 senior, didn’t stop scoring Friday until the refs took the ball away at the end of game. He scored the Muhls’ final points, spinning through traffic for a transition bucket in the final seconds.
It’s nothing the Muhls haven’t seen before.
“He does it all the time,” Mosquera said. “He does it in practice, he does it in summer league. He did it last year against Dieruff (when) he had 28. Him going off isn’t a surprise to me.”
“That’s the way he’s been playing all year,” Muhls coach Matt Flowers said. “He’s had a great summer; he had a great fall. And today, he played lights-out.”
Robertson hit 9-of-14 shots, including 3-of-5 from beyond the arc. He played defense, too, pressuring the ball all the way up the court along with Mosquera and the rest of the Muhls.
They harassed the Rams throughout, exposing the young team’s handle issues.
They forced CD to play at a faster pace than they probably liked, leading no doubt to its 2-of-10 shooting from beyond the arc.
The Muhls love to play that way. It’s full-go for 32 minutes with them on both ends of the court. When the shots are falling, as they did in the first half, when they knocked down seven 3-pointers, they’re a tough out.
Luis Valentin, another senior guard with big-game experience, came off the bench and dropped 3’s on his first three shots of the season, helping the Muhls push their lead to nine at one point in the second quarter.
The Rams pulled within a point in the early minutes of the third quarter after the Muhls lost the range from the field. Mosquera, who didn’t have a field goal through the first 23 1/2 minutes of the game, sparked a late run.
He was in position to put back Robertson’s missed 3 in the final seconds of the third quarter for a 46-40 lead. A minute into the fourth quarter he fought through the lane, found a screen at the foul line, then got free to drop a 3-pointer. A minute later he hit another and the Muhls were up 12.
“When it went in I felt that was a big game-changer,” he said of his second 3. “I heard the crowd get loud and the energy on the bench picked up. Once we got that cushion, we were able to relax, run our set plays and finish out the game strong.”
The Muhls showed a lot of depth and a lot of balance. Eleven guys played. Eight scored. Three reached double figures, including Mosquera, who had 16 — 11 in the fourth quarter — and Valentin, who had 10 points to go with a team-high six rebounds and four assists.
The Muhls don’t have an abundance of size, and they’re likely to get out-rebounded occasionally this season. They actually rebounded better and played better overall when Flowers went small for much of the second half after center Mekhi Adonis got in early foul trouble.
“We just have to team rebound,” Flowers said. “We do that, we’ll be fine.”
If Robertson keeps up this kind of shooting they’ll be more than fine. He averaged 8.6 points per game as a junior, third on the team, but didn’t have a consistent game and didn’t immediately buy into Flowers’ defense-first philosophy. He’s come a long way since; he’s picked up his game in every phase.
“Last year we could sit him (if he wasn’t playing well) because we had other guys,” Flowers said. “Now, he’s one of the guys.”
Robertson would like to be more than that.
“I just want to be that guy for us every night,” he said. “Every night I come out with the mindset: I’m just trying to (crush) everybody that’s in my way.”
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final | |
| Muhlenberg | 14 | 23 | 9 | 24 | 70 |
| Central Dauphin | 15 | 16 | 11 | 17 | 59 |
| Muhls (1-0) | FG | FT | 3’s | A | R | Points |
| Robertson | 9-14 | 5-8 | 3-5 | 1 | 26 | |
| Mosquera | 3-5 | 8-9 | 2-3 | 2 | 3 | 16 |
| Archie | 1-1 | 1-2 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Alcantara | 1-6 | 0-1 | 1-5 | 0 | 6 | 3 |
| Adonis | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Branch | 2-5 | 2-2 | 0-1 | 1 | 0 | 6 |
| Valentin | 3-5 | 1-2 | 3-4 | 4 | 6 | 10 |
| Towles | 1-2 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Collado | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Zaballa | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Miller | 2-3 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| Totals | 22-41 | 17-24 | 9-19 | 8 | 20-23 | 70 |
| Rams (0-1) | FG | FT | 3’s | A | R | Points |
| Fletcher | 1-9 | 5-6 | 1-6 | 0 | 1 | 8 |
| Cofield | 3-6 | 1-4 | 0-0 | 1 | 1 | 7 |
| Fried | 0-2 | 2-3 | 0-0 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| Gross | 2-4 | 0-0 | 1-2 | 0 | 5 | 5 |
| Arobas | 4-5 | 2-2 | 0-1 | 0 | 4 | 10 |
| Haggan | 9-11 | 2-3 | 0-0 | 1 | 9 | 20 |
| Dockens | 1-4 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 3 | 2 |
| Easter | 1-3 | 3-4 | 0-1 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| Yarrish | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Totals | 21-44 | 15-22 | 2-10 | 4 | 26-27 | 59 |
Turnovers: Muhlenberg 11, Central Dauphin 14.
