Milton Hershey's Gary Gilliam, left, fights for a rebound with Eastern York's Andrew Nicholas during Tuesday's District 3 Class AAA first-round game. Nicholas scored 15 points, and the Golden Knights won, 66-53. Next up for No. 2-seeded Eastern is No. 7 Steel-High, 62-54 winners over Middletown. (Daily Record/Sunday News - Bil Bowden)

It's easy to overlook Levi Myers.

He starts on the Eastern York boys' basketball team along with two legitimate Division I prospects and makes most of his contributions quietly with defense and rebounding.

Playing in the win-or-go-home first round of the District 3 Class AAA tournament, Myers picked the right time to grab a piece of the spotlight.

The junior forward scored seven of his 15 points in the fourth quarter, emerging as a third scoring threat along with sophomores Austin Tillotson (17 points) and Andrew Nicholas (15 points), as the No. 2 Golden Knights took down No. 18 Milton Hershey 66-53 at Dover on Tuesday night.

"What a night for Levi," Eastern coach Larry Fisher said. "He is so consistent

Eastern York's Ryan Yohe keeps control of the ball despite nearly falling over Milton Hershey's Josh Nyarko during Tuesday's game. (Daily Record/Sunday News - Bil Bowden)
defensively for us, rebounding, steals and those things, but tonight he really put it all together with an offensive effort that I thought we absolutely needed tonight."

Next up for Eastern York (24-2) is a quarterfinal matchup with defending PIAA Class AAA champions and No. 7 seed Steelton-Highspire.

"If we're going to win this thing, we're truly going to be the best team in this tournament," Fisher said. "I don't think anybody looking at this bracket could say there is a cheap win to be found."

The Spartans made it tough for the Golden Knights in the first half, as Al-Shabazz Jabateh (32 points) and 6-foot-7 forward Gary Gilliam (11 points) led a Milton Hershey offense that held a 20-19 lead early through the second quarter. Eastern responded by stepping up its defense, holding the Spartans to only two points during the last five minutes of the first half and taking a 29-22 lead into the break.

Eastern led by at least five points the rest of the game, as Ryan Yohe (seven points), Davin Zimmerman (six points) and Dalton Derr (six points) also contributed. The Golden Knights closed the third quarter on a 7-0 run, getting five of those points from Tillotson.

Jabateh ended up scoring more than half of his team's total points, but Eastern's focus was shutting down the 6-7 Gilliam. Facing Nicholas, who pulled down a game-high 17 rebounds, Gilliam barely reached double digits in points and pulled down only nine boards.

"We wanted to limit Gilliam's touches," Fisher said. "We really were rolling a lot of defense to him and probably giving up some stuff to (Jabateh) because we were doubling (Gilliam), and (Jabateh) was getting to the basket, and we were not quite getting there. We needed to get weak-side help there, but there's only so many guys you can run it to. I thought we did a real nice job forcing (Gilliam) to work for everything he could get."

Eastern out-rebounded Milton Hershey 34-27 and picked up a decisive victory following Saturday's two-point defeat in the YAIAA tournament title game.

"It was important to us, especially coming off the loss to York High," Myers said of winning by a double-digit margin. "It was a good feeling to come out and show them we can still play even off a loss."

Eastern York finished sixth in last season's district tournament after losing in the quarterfinals. Myers said his team has a "pretty good" chance of winning this year's tournament and a "really good" chance if the team plays like it did in Tuesday's victory.

"We have the ability," Myers said. "All of us can dribble, all of us can shoot -- we're very versatile."
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