Basketball: Start of a New Era
At the beginning of Big Red’s basketball season, everyone at Exeter was still reeling from the thrilling 2012-13 “superteam.” Going off a historic 25-1, the group was built on the backs of PGs and repeat uppers, an older team of premier athletes, brought in to decimate any opponent that stood in its way. The school was spoiled by victory, and when the eleven-man roster was posted for the 2013-14 season with only three PGs and five lowerclassmen, the season was written off as just a “rebuilding year” in anticipation of another dominant season. Oh, how wrong we all were.
After the first ten games, Exeter was standing at .600 for the season—a respectable standing, of course, but with a hockey team that averaged 2.4 more goals per game than its opponents, the campus flipped its focus to the more “exciting” team, favoring blowouts over close, hard-fought victories. But what Exonians failed to notice was a talented group of young men becoming closer and closer to each other, developing chemistry, getting better as a unit and having a better feel for the flow of their games with each other.
The focus of the team shifted from last year’s high-octane blitzkrieg offense that could power their way through defenses and pound the boards to a new, calm, methodical zone/man hybrid defense that kept the pressure on the ball but could morph to fit any offense.
As lower James Foye said earlier in the season, “Our coaches have stressed defense from the beginning of the year, so it’s become an important part of every game. We know that we may not always play great offensively, but if we come to play defensively, we have a chance to win every game.”
And their defense held steady. Big Red allowed between 40 to 50 points in almost every single game for the first two-thirds of the season with a mechanical consistency. By forcing opponents to make good, smart plays, Exeter was able to weed out the weaker teams and contend with the stronger teams.
“We had our fair share of ups and downs all season and it really had a lot to do with injuries. With Kendrick [Morris] missing our first few games, followed by Jeb [Helmers] going down for a month and then overlapped by my ankle injury, we were never really at full strength,” post-graduate JD Slajchert said. “But, at the same time, it gave our younger players the opportunity to come in and play right away. They did a great job and it gave them the confidence they needed to contribute in a huge way once we were at full strength.”
It became clear that when Big Red was on a roll, they kept on it. After being stunned by a powerful New Hampton team, Exeter rebounded with a strong five-game winning streak, with close games from Belmont Hill and a top-ranked Tabor and blowouts versus Governor’s, St. Paul’s and Proctor. Unfortunately, as soon as they’d heated up, their flame was doused with a four-game losing streak. After they had crushed the feeble Thayer Academy that they’d started the season with, they were going to enter E/A a few games over .500, and it looked like it’d be one of the last games of the season, destined for a short playoff run.
“Obviously with last year’s team going 25-1, we knew expectations would be high,” lower Perry DeLorenzo said. “After a strong opening to the year, we hit a rough patch, losing a couple games to hover around .500. We built on those losses and figured out how to win tight games down the stretch. This helped us a ton once it became playoff time.”
E/A started off with a stutter. Mental mistakes were made on both sides of the ball; while both schools were watching a hockey game that ended in an anticlimactic 3-3 tie, Exeter was down by seven at the half with a few unlucky calls and rim bounces that didn’t land in their favor. However, when the crowd started to pour in and drown out the Andover fans, Big Red put on their rally caps and, with 1.5 seconds left, capped off their comeback with a clutch shot by post-graduate Jeb Helmers to force overtime. Andover tried to hold onto its momentum, but the floodgates had been opened. With its coaches and players both going crazy from the jeers of the fans, Exeter humiliated Andover in overtime and silenced the mobs as they stormed the court in a game that showed the heart and soul of the team. This was a team that may have started well and fell down, but fought it out until the end, pulling out the win.
“My favorite moment besides winning the championship was the E/A game. The atmosphere was like nothing else there and the way our team kept at it and never gave up was incredible. It made for a really special ending to that game,” Foye said. “I thought that win was a pivotal point in our season because it gave us the momentum we needed going into the playoffs.”
Big Red basketball took its turn in the spotlight there on E/A and showed the whole school that while it may not have had the same record as last year’s team, this was anything but a rebuilding year. This was a young-gun team that was a force to be reckoned with. They didn’t need flashy all-stars to carry a team, they worked together and moved the ball well to create opportunities, and by starting off their championship run with a game at home against a formidable Tabor team, they pulled out a large crowd to come support them in their playoff bid.
The first two rounds of the playoffs had the team operating at higher and higher levels of play. With a victory over Tabor, Exeter humiliated the BB&N opposition with a 20-point gap, a section of jeering fans, slam-dunks and flat-out laughing at the other team on the court. Exeter had developed a swagger of sorts; they knew that they were capable of manhandling good teams and had a good chance of winning the championship game.
Playing two hours away from home, the Exeter faithfuls loaded up into buses, shelled out three dollars, and got ready to watch Big Red try to do what the highly-touted hockey team had unfortunately failed to do the day before: win a championship. Hotchkiss and Exeter, the third and fourth seeds, hadn’t met in the regular season, but judging by the point differential of their common opponents, it was going to be tight. Hotchkiss started out with a lead, but after a surge from Exeter and countless lead changes, Exeter led by three with 13.8 to go when a Hotchkiss three pointer tied it all up. Fortunately, Exeter had Jeb Helmers on its side. After playing aggressively for the entire game, Jeb repeated his E/A performance by securing Exeter’s victory. After getting a pass from Foye, Helmers dribbled the length of the court, but up a heavily contested three, and sank it, leaving but 3.7 seconds on the clock. The timeout called at 1.3 seconds wasn’t enough for Hotchkiss, and Exeter made its way through the ranks, becoming the first back-to-back NEPSAC A champion in school history.
“I have been a part of some great teams in the past that have made some great strides throughout a long season but were never able to get over the hump and win a championship,” Slajchert said. “It feels great to end my extended high school career with such a fantastic group of men.”
But make no mistake: this was no “superteam.” This wasn’t a collection of hired guns pulled from AAU teams for a one-year push at a championship. It was something better. This was the beginning of an era for Exeter. With a large core of the team being lowerclassmen, the 2013-14 season was a collection of new players, young and old. These were players who came together over the course of a season, didn’t give up in the face of tough adversity and came out winners. The members of this team weren’t the foundation of a rebuilding year. This was Big Red basketball, and these were champions.