Over Winter Break, Dominion’s Varsity Boys Basketball team played in the 46th annual Mt.Vernon Holiday Basketball Tournament which took place at Mt.Vernon High School. Going 2-1, Dominion lost in the championship game 71-62 to Oxon Hill High School, the 11th ranked team in the Washington D.C. area according to the Washington Post. With the tournament, they increased their record to 4-2.

Dominion’s sports teams generally partake in tournaments over break, which is not unusual for a lot of high schools in our area. “A lot of high schools use the opportunity to go out and play teams they wouldn’t normally in a tournament setting,” Head Coach Anthony Eifler said. The first game of the tournament for Dominion was against West Springfield High School. Dominion won the game 65-47. The top playmakers for the game were senior Guard Max Mancuso with 17 points, senior Guard/Forward Adam Thomas with 12 points and 8 rebounds, senior Guard Sam Shelton with 11 points, and senior Guard Nick Barenz with 10 points.

The second game of the tournament, Dominion won again against the tournaments host school: Mt. Vernon High School. The final score was 76-38.  The leading scorers were Shelton with 13 points, Thomas with 13 points, Junior Forward Jake Mancuso with 12, and Barenz had 11.

In the championship game, Dominion has pitted against Oxon Hill High School, one of the most dominant basketball schools in the DMV. “We were up at halftime after a great shooting first half but ran out of steam down the stretch losing 72-61,”  Eifler said. With the loss to Oxon Hill in the championship, Dominion placed second in the eight team tournament. “We played really well as a team. Just started off the 3rd quarter flat” Barenz said. 

There was a general positive attitude among the Dominion players and coaching staff with their deep run in the tournament and their performance. “It was a great weekend for us and got to build a lot of camaraderie leading into the conference schedule,”  Eifler said. Players shared a similar sentiment. “I think we did pretty well. We got better at putting away teams right away that we were better than and we learned that we have to improve to coming out quicker in the third quarters to keep teams down,”  Shelton said. 

This is the second year in a row in which Dominion has gone 2-1 and placed second in the holiday tournament. Last year, they went to the championship game and lost to Falls Church.