SALEM TWP. — Dallas wanted to make sure the offense that left Mohegan Sun Arena after the District 2 Class 5A boys basketball championship game didn’t show up Friday night.
Sophomore guard Nick Nocito made sure of that.
Nocito scored a game-high 28 points, including 10 in a row to start the second quarter, as Dallas defeated Frankford 69-57 in a PIAA 5A state opener at Berwick Middle School.
District 2 runner-up Dallas (20-7) advances to the second round on Tuesday and will play D3 fifth seed York William Penn (21-7) at a site and time to be announced. The Mountaineers also made it to the second round three other times — in 1984, 1991 and 2018 — since the PIAA increased each classification tournament to 32 teams in 1972.
D12 third seed Frankford ended its season at 7-18.
Nocito’s 28 points were just four fewer than the Mountaineers scored in their 33-32 loss to Wallenpaupack in the D2-5A title game. Center Jack Farrell was right behind him with 24 along with a team-high seven boards.
“We worked on that over the week,” Dallas coach Mark Belenski said. “Different style game. We knew they were physical, we knew they were athletic and we knew we had to make shots. We got squashed the other night, but we came back. We’re a tough group.”
Nocito helped turn a one-point deficit after the first quarter into a 22-13 lead with 10 consecutive points before Frankford scored in the second quarter. He opened the second quarter with a 3-pointer and ended his personal 10-0 run with a three-point play. Aside from the 3-pointer, the other baskets came directly from Dallas forcing turnovers.
“We wanted to pick it up on defense,” Nocito said. “Our defense was a little bit lax. The first quarter, they got a couple threes at the end so we wanted to pick it up on defense and that’s how we got a lot of our points.
Dallas led 30-21 at halftime and bumped its advantage to double digits on 3-pointers by Farrell and Nocito in the third quarter.
The lead, though, resided in a gray area most of the second half. At times, Dallas appeared ready to blow open the game only for Frankford to knock down a 3-pointer to keep things from unraveling.
PIAA CLASS 5A FIRST ROUND
Dallas 69, Frankford 57
FRANKFORD (57) — Christopher Sherman 2 0-0 6, Jarik Baker 5 0-2 10, Youneil Santiago 2 0-0 6, Kyree Benton 4 0-0 9, Yeshua Ham 2 0-0 4, Izayiah Adams 2 3-4 7, Brandon Moore 0 0-0 0, Elliot Raymond 4 4-5 15, Totals 21 7-11 57.
DALLAS (69) — Jack Farrell 8 5-8 24, Austin Finarelli 2 0-2 4, Nick Nocito 8 10-14 28, Dylan Schuster 2 0-2 5, Luke DelGaudio 3 0-0 6, Sam Nocito 0 2-2 2, Michael Bufalino 0 0-0 0. Totals 23 17-28 69.
Frankford`13`8`16`20 — 57
Dallas`12`18`14`25 — 69
Three-point goals — FR 8 (Sherman 2, Benton, Raymond 3, Santiago 2). DAL 5 (Farrell 3, N.Nocito, Schuster).
