Commitment by Leith lands PDS boys in Prep B final
By: Bob Nuse
Throughout the course of the season, Princeton Day School boys’ basketball coach Ahmed El-Nokali never questioned Dylan Leith’s commitment to winning and becoming a better player.
"The thing with Dylan is that we asked so much of him," said El-Nokali, whose team closed out its season with a 55-49 loss to Newark Academy. "He’s our defensive stopper. He gets the toughest assignment every game. And because we only play six players a lot of games, he also has to carry a lot of the scoring load.
"There was a part of the season where he really wasn’t shooting the ball very well. But to his credit, he was in the gym working on his shooting before practice and then myself and Coach (Sumant) Bhat would get there and put him through shooting drills. He would do as much work as he could to get better."
Those extra sessions certainly paid off for Leith once the Prep B state tournament rolled around. After helping the Panthers to wins over Wardlaw-Hartridge and Morristown-Beard in the first two rounds, Leith exploded offensively in the semifinals and finals.
The senior guard from Hamilton scored 20 points in a 56-51 win over second-seeded Solomon Schecter in the semis, then tossed in a game-high 24 points in the loss to Newark Academy. In the final, it was Leith’s 12 points during a three-minute stretch in the third quarter that helped cut the Newark Academy lead from 15 points to one.
Dylan Leith is the Princeton Packet Athlete of the Week.
"You can never be happy about losing," said Leith, who made four straight three-point shots in the third quarter. "But we can be happy with how far we got this season and the progress we made. It was definitely exciting in that third quarter. In the previous games in the playoffs I had shot the ball poorly. The coaches worked on my shot a lot in practice and I think that helped build my confidence for the games. It was good to see the hard work pay off."
Because the Panthers count on Leith so heavily at the defensive end, he isn’t always counted on to score. Even so, he finished the year as the team’s second-leading scorer at 11.2 points per game.
"I’m the type of person who, if someone on my team is scoring 50 points, I won’t score much," Leith said. "But if the team needs me to score, I’ll score. More often I’ll look to pass and get the ball to other people."
During Sunday’s championship game loss to NA, the Panthers needed Leith to score. And he didn’t let them down.
"It was really an incredible stretch," said El-Nokali, whose team finished the season with a 16-9 record. "He hit four threes and got fouled on another. He’s that type of shooter that can get hot like that and he really got us back into the game. The last two games he shot the ball extremely well. He’s a wing shooter, even in practice, and the more he hits his shots the more confident he gets."
The run to the Prep B final capped off a great season for the Panthers, who rebounded after winning just eight games last year.
"I think from the beginning of the season until the end we made a lot of progress," Leith said. "We tried to play more as a team and I think that showed. I think our progress can definitely be attributed to our coaches. They worked with us and put us into a position to be the best team we could be.
"They were willing to put in the extra time. We just kept getting better all season and we played our best at the end. Our goal was to get better and we did that."
And Leith was at his best in his final game as a Panther.
"The transition to the new coaches wasn’t hard at all," Leith said. "He came in the first day and said our goal was to play in the state final. I was excited right from the start because I hate losing. You could tell the commitment was there for us to do well."