By Richard Taylor
The varsity boys Ocracoke Dolphins handily defeated KIPP Pride Panthers 60-43 in their first 1A playoff game Feb. 25 at home and advanced to the second-round game against the LeJeune Devil Pups on Feb. 28 at Camp LeJeune. The tipoff will be 7 p.m. and will be broadcast by WOVV, 90.1 FM on the island and wovv.org.
“This was their was best game of the season,” Head Dolphins varsity coach Frank Moore said after Tuesday’s game.
The Dolphins finished undefeated 10-0 in the 1A Atlantic Conference propelling them to the state playoffs against KIPP Pride from the small Northampton County town of Gaston.
With seven skilled seniors returning, the Dolphins were expected to have a strong season, and they did.
But for the first few games it did not appear to be the case as they lost three games. Those losses were to nonconference Division 2A teams, much larger schools, and two of the games were close: Manteo, 53-47, Holmes 64-59.
They also upset another 2A team, East Carteret, winning convincingly 55-41 on their home court. Their last loss was to Croatan on Dec. 20, finishing the regular season 14-3.
A highlight of the season was senior center Landon Fuller, who scored his 1,000th point as a Dolphin in the game at Columbia, Jan. 31. He was honored at the home game against Bear Grass Feb. 4.
Ocracoke’s varsity Lady Dolphins finished the season at 5-8, including three conference wins and averaging 37 points per game. This was a much-improved team from last year in what was expected to be a rebuilding year when they did not win a conference game and finished 2-18.
This is Moore’s last year as head coach.
Before moving to Ocracoke, he was the longest-tenured basketball coach — boys’ or girls’ — in the Southern Maryland Athletic Conference.
What has kept Moore coming back to the island for six years, despite hardships like practicing in a cold Hurricane Dorian ravaged gym during his first (0-13) season plus long activity-bus and ferry rides to off-island teams every year?
“It’s just these kids,” he said. “I used to coach in bigger schools, and we had great fans, but I had always wanted to coach in a small setting.”
When he first visited in the summer of 2019 (before Dorian), he noticed they were always playing on the outside practice court, and he told himself that he’d like to coach those boys.
“It’s just the atmosphere and fan support that you get down here,” he said about Ocracoke. “In the wintertime, there’s not much going on, so the fans come out and support us. Their support is a big part of this program.
“I came here when these kids were freshmen and they thought they knew everything,” he said. “Then they met me. It was a rude awakening for them because I have a lot of old-school practices. That’s just the way I coach. I wanted them to do the right thing at the right time, and they bought into it.”
Moore noted how the boys seem to always know where their teammates are, making good passes that lead to seemingly automatic buckets.
“It’s about the way they pass, from the outside to the inside,” he said. “It’s the way they work together. They get (lots of easy) layups that way. It’s like fluid motion. Then somebody will toss the ball out to Carter (O’Neal) and he’ll swish another three-pointer from beyond the arc.”
Moore is known for his antics along the sidelines, where he regularly shouts vigorously at his players when they make a bad play or commit a sloppy foul.
Moore and his wife Kay’s other residence is a southern Maryland tobacco farm on the Chesapeake Bay that’s been in his family since the 1700s.
Even though his coaching days are over at 78, Moore plans to stay busy.
“We’ll come back down here (where he owns a house) when I pull my crab pots up and I’ll be back in that gym for that first home game,” he said. “I’m gonna get up in the corner of The Tank and criticize everybody, uh-huh.”
With seven seniors lost to graduation, what advice does Moore give to his assistant Luke Davis, who takes over head coaching duties next season?
“You have to work with what you’ve got,” he said. “It’s just fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals.”
The varsity boys will start a rebuilding season next fall.
Mau (Guerrero Perez) will be back next year along with Walker Sallee.
“Mau played a good game the last couple of times,” Moore said.
As for crowd favorite Uriel Perez’s steady rise from mostly a bench warmer to starting Senior Day, then netting a season high of 20 points against Mattamuskeet in the last home game of the regular season, Moore said, “We really need him down a stretch and he played well. He’s earned some more minutes and I’m real proud of him because he’s worked awfully hard.”
Moore was sanguine about his leaving, but happy with the community.
“The support from this community has made my dream of coaching at a small school come true,” he said. “This has been a great big part of my coaching career, and I am going to miss the part of being on the bench. But now it’s time for me to return home and just go fishing.”
