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Jim Dooley spotted him in the hallway, his cheeks red like a tomato, and told him not to worry.
"I just gave him a hug," said Dooley, Delone Catholic's head boys basketball coach. "What more can you ask for? They left their spleen on that court."
Nathan Myers, Hanover's head coach, leaned against a white brick wall and talked about heart.
"He's our guts. He's our glue guy. He holds us together," he said of his senior guard. "He has a huge heart. He's a gutsy, gutsy kid. He had a great basketball game on his part. What can you say? He's our leader. He's one of our captains."
It was only December, yet Jordan Martz acted as if it were March. We were only at Hanover High, yet it felt as though the stage were bigger, say the Giant Center.
The game was a statement and yet the Nighthawks lost.
"They didn't know who we were," Martz said after his team's 46-45 overtime loss to Delone Catholic on Friday. "We came into this season knowing we could play basketball and knowing we could change something at Hanover. And tonight it wasn't meant to be."
Truth be told, Martz wasn't the only Hawk who stood out. Grant Mummert was a zombie when that final shot broke cotton. Nate Trish and Pete Yingst fell to the floor in agony. But it was Martz who perfectly represented the sentiment: Hanover won't be content with anything this year.
Not just being able to play with the Delones or the Eastern Yorks or the York Suburbans. Not just reaching the
The Hawks put in a ton of summer work to get to this point and they want to see some of that work turn into success. Martz, in particular, trained with the Institute of Athletic Development all through the summer to get stronger, quicker and faster (I can say that because I saw Martz at different times through the summer at the Hanover YMCA).
"I think (this game is) going to wake a lot of people up," Martz said. "We're going to get everyone's best. And that's what's going to make us better."
Hanover rebounded from the tough loss on Friday with a 62-39 win over Littlestown on Monday. And through five games - I've seen four of them - the Hawks have put themselves in a very good early position.
Without question, the Hawks are one of the most rounded teams in YAIAA Division II Section 4.
Biglerville is talented and has size, but lacks depth. Fairfield is rebuilding and will find it hard to win a game this season. York Tech, more or less, faces the same challenges the Green Knights see on a regular basis.
So the big sectional test Hanover will face is against York Catholic, who was in Section 3 last season before it was realigned and the Squires and Fighting Irish switched places.
York Catholic faced Delone on Dec. 9 and lost by three points. Of course, by simply doing the math, it would seem Hanover has the edge.
But math never seems to translate to the court so easily. Maybe we should take advice from Dooley, who had good things to say about the Hawks on Friday.
"The way they played tonight, with that enthusiasm and that passion, they're going to win a lot of games," he said. "They're a threat to win their section. That's the way they have to feel."
Cory Mull is an Evening Sun sports writer. Contact him at cmull@eveningsun.com. Listen to his podcast, The Mull Report, on Friday, view video and read his blog, A Handful of Sports, at http://blogs.eveningsun.com/mull.
