Second cousins seeking firsts in 1A tournament
Girls basketball coaches Mike Dukes and Ulysses Hardy knew how they wanted to finish the season: playing against each other in the Class 1A state final.
It seemed unlikely, given their young rosters. But after Dukes, in his first year at No. 12 Pikesville, and Hardy, in his third at Coppin Academy, led their schools to their first region titles, the second cousins are each one game away from making Saturday night’s state championship game at Towson University’s SECU Arena a family reunion.
“We talk pretty much every day about getting to that final game,” Hardy said. “That’s what we want. That was the plan at the beginning of the year. Coppin vs. Pikesville, and have two family members going at each other.”
The teams have already met this season, though the scrimmage at Pikesville in December was more memorable for its crowd than the result.
“I’ve never seen a scrimmage that packed,” Hardy said. “It was one of the best scrimmages Mike and I ever had. We both got ready for the season that night. The environment was there, family was there. We got friends on both sides. It was pretty much where we were in each other’s backyard.”
Said Dukes: “It was a great scrimmage. It was just full of great quarters and at the end we agreed, ‘Let’s meet at Towson.’ I don’t know that either one of us were thinking about how realistic it was.”
Hardy knew his freshmen would “make or break” his and Dukes’ best-laid plans, but they grew up fast and developed into strong, aggressive players.
His young players also had help from their teammates. Senior guard Tylea Galloway, a transfer from Poly, was a mentor through Hardy’s “big sister” program, in which older players take younger ones under their wing.
Behind sophomore point guard Kayla Henderson, the Golden Eagles’ leading scorer with 24 points per game, Coppin stayed balanced. Freshman post player Nyshae Weaver — called the team’s Dennis Rodman by Hardy — averages 21 points and 14 rebounds, while Galloway (17.5 points, 11 rebounds, seven assists), who will play next season at Division I Delaware State, and her sister Tanae (14 points, six rebounds) provide the secondary scoring punch.
Hardy needed players such as the Galloway sisters to help the Golden Eagles reach the semifinals in their first year in the state playoff system. The school, operated by and located on the campus of Coppin State with about 350 students in grades nine through 12, is still getting used to its basketball success.
“I’ve never looked up and saw teachers at games,” Hardy said of his first two seasons. “Now I see teachers [at games] an hour and 30 minutes away. So the support around the student body and staff has been great.”
He’s had support at home, too. Hardy’s wife, Felicia, was an assistant women’s basketball coach on the Division I level for more than a decade, including five seasons at Towson University. A former standout at Western and Northeastern and head coach at CCBC Dundalk, Felicia Hardy helps her husband prepare his scouting reports. And Ulysses Hardy can also walk across campus to see his brother-in-law, Coppin State women’s basketball coach DeWayne Burroughs, and pick his brain. He’s done the same with some of men’s coach Juan Dixon’s assistants.
“It was a matter of us being able to jell and put things together,” Dukes said. “Now, reaching the heights that we reached? That’s a whole different story.”
Dukes knows a talented team when he sees one, having served the previous three seasons as an assistant at St. Frances under Jerome Shelton and winning two Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference titles. So when Pikesville won the Donnis Thompson bracket championship at the Title IX Classic at the D.C. Armory in late December, a path to the state championship suddenly wasn’t so unlikely.
Charia Roberts and Tyra Robinson have been crucial, part of what Dukes, a former Towson Catholic coach, calls “a perfect storm in terms of the ingredients.”
Robinson was another talented player who fell into Dukes’ lap. After playing junior varsity at St. Frances, she transferred to Pikesville. Now she’s averaging 13 points per game for a first-time state semifinalist, one of three in the Baltimore area this postseason. No. 7 Long Reach beat No. 15 Chesapeake-AA, 77-58, in the 3A East championship game and will face No. 6 Poly on Thursday at 9 p.m. at SECU Arena.
Hardy and Dukes now they face their biggest tests. Coppin must get past last year’s state finalist and 2016 champion Largo (Friday, 9 p.m., SECU Arena), while Pikesville is up against Southern-Garrett (Friday, 7 p.m., SECU Arena), which has been to the state final four straight times.
But they know that if at least one of them wins, they’ll have another voice in their cheering section for Saturday’s title game.
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