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Dallas’ Kael Berry shoots over Hazleton Area’s Dylan Stish during their Wyoming Valley Conference boys’ basketball game, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in Hazle Twp. (BOB GAETANO / CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER)

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HAZLE TWP. — Mark Belenski and his Dallas boys basketball team weren’t about to fall into the same trap.

The Mountaineers spent their bye Tuesday watching Hazleton Area struggle in a home loss to Crestwood. But they also knew the danger of underestimating a wounded Cougars team they hadn’t beaten at Hughie McGeehan Gymnasium since 2020, even during their recent stretch of Wyoming Valley Conference dominance. Dallas also was well aware that the 2025-26 Cougars played a brutal non-conference schedule to prepare them to face WVC powers like the Mountaineers.

Sure enough, Hazleton Area came out snarling Friday, trading baskets and leads with the Mountaineers in a thrilling first half that ended with the Cougars ahead, 30-29.

Then came the third quarter, when Dallas used a 23-9 blitz to subdue a perennial nemesis and spark its eventual 75-55 victory.

“I was not happy with the way it started,” said Belenski, whose Mountaineers moved into a first-place tie with Crestwood atop the WVC Division 1 standings, both with 4-0 records in league play. “I think they had five shots on their first possession, and we knew that we had to neutralize them on the offensive boards. … That’s what we did in the second half. We really stepped up and took away their offensive boards and we were able to get out and run.”

And make shots — lots of them. Outside, inside, anywhere, really, it didn’t matter.

After not draining a single 3-pointer in first half, the Mountaineers (11-3 overall) knocked down three on their first three possessions of the second half, two by senior Kael Berry and another by Tyce Mason.

“In the old days, the best shot was a layup,” Belenski laughed. “Now, these guys like the three-ball. The guys that can shoot the three-ball, they’re allowed to shoot it. If they get down the court and they’re open, they take it.”

The Cougars (5-8, 2-2) stayed close on Kendrick Ortiz’s fast-break layup and Oscaudy Vasquez’s five consecutive points, but Pat Flanagan wrapped four of his game-high 23 points around buckets by Chris Flanagan and Joey Nocito in an 8-0 burst to give Dallas a 46-37 lead. Sophomore Eddie Macko’s coast-to-coast bucket interrupted the visitors’ surge, but Mason, Pat Flanagan and Nocito all scored on hard drives to the hoop to bump the Mountaineers’ advantage to 52-39 by the end of the quarter.

By then, Hazleton Area head coach Pat Brogan was wondering, “What if…?”

“We should have been ahead by at least eight points in the first half. … You can’t miss opportunities against a good team,” he said. “They didn’t miss their opportunities. They didn’t miss open shots. They didn’t miss foul shots.”

Dallas — particularly Pat Flanagan — made sure the Cougars didn’t get any closer than 14 points in the final period. The junior forward was all over the floor, spinning his way past defenders to the basket, burying a 3-pointer from the corner, hustling for rebounds and loose balls and forcing turnovers and cashing those into points.

“We came out after halftime ready to punch,” Flanagan said. “We really were just focused. That’s all it is — focus.”

Flanagan finished with 11 points in the fourth quarter and Mason and Brady Mizzer each made a 3-pointer to make the final score look deceptive, especially the way the game started.

“Every game we’ve played this year we either outworked our opponent or worked just as hard as our opponent,” Belenski said. “That’s something we pride ourselves in, and that’s what we did tonight to gain separation from them.”

The game was tied three times and the lead changed hands five times in the first quarter, though Hazleton Area had the better of the fight for most of the quarter. YoYo Moran popped in eight of his team-best 19 points for the Cougars. His left-handed layup and later Vasquez’s two free throws twice gave the Cougars a six-point lead.

But Nocito and Mason canned four points apiece late in the quarter to pull Dallas into a 19-all tie entering the second quarter.

There were six more lead changes over the next eight minutes with neither side up by more than the Cougars’ three-point margin (26-23) that followed Moran’s two foul shots at the 6:14 mark.

The two teams, however, went cold from the field over the rest of the quarter — both 4 of 11 — to keep them from making runs before halftime. Putbacks by Dylan Stish and Ortiz enabled the Cougars to take a 30-29 lead into the locker room.

After one last tie early in the third quarter, the Mountaineers began to wear the Cougars down.

“We made a couple of poor decisions in the third quarter that led to easy baskets for them,” Brogan said. “And then, they were just physically stronger than us. They were men and we’re not men yet. It’s motivation for our guys to get stronger (and) stay in the weight room.”

Despite the two straight home losses, Brogan and his team insist there’s still a long road to navigate to the conference playoffs.

“There are going to be losses for teams in our league because there’s a lot of parity,” Brogan said. “There are still crazy things than are going to happen in this league before it’s all said and done.”

Belenski agreed.

“We have Wilkes-Barre and then we have Crestwood next week. … It doesn’t get any easier … because it (the WVC) is so balanced,” he said. “If you take a night off, you get caught… It’s kids. It’s high school basketball. That’s what makes it so much fun.”

DALLAS (75) — Nocito 5 6-8 16, Mason 5 1-2 13, Berry 5 0-1 12, C. Flanagan 4 0-0 8, McCann 0 0-0 0, P. Flanagan 7 8-9 23, Mizzer 1 0-0 3, Scatton 0 0-0 0, Geskey 0 0-0 0. Totals 27 15-20 75.

HAZLETON AREA (55) — Paulino 0 0-0 0, Moran 6 7-8 19, Stish 5 2-5 14, Ortiz 3 0-0 6, Vasquez 2 2-2 7, Macko 3 0-0 7, Heck 0 0-0 0, Centeno 0 0-0 0, Lucas 1 0-0 2, Lantigua 0 0-0 0, Ramirez 0 0-0 0. Totals 10 11-15 55.

Dallas (11-3, 4-0) 19 10 23 23 — 75

Haz Area (5-8, 2-2) 19 11 9 16 — 55

3-FG: Mason 2, Berry 2, P. Flanagan, Mizzer, Stish 2, Vasquez, Macko.