Season opener worth the wait for Panthers

Robinson’s 18 points lead Pikesville to winning debut

Pikesville’s girls basketball team had to wait more than two weeks to play its first game, but it was worth the wait.

Thanks to 31 points from Tyra Robinson and 8-for-8 free-throw shooting in the final 18 seconds, the Panthers defeated Baltimore County rival Chesapeake, 71-63, in a nondivision game Friday night.

The Panthers, 4-16 last season, have a new coach in Mike Dukes, a former Towson Catholic coach and an assistant at No. 1 St. Frances the past three years. Dukes also has a handful of transfers to add to a good core of returning players and strong freshmen, giving them strength and depth at every position.

The host Bayhawks (2-1) were 16-4 last season and have played in the Class 2A North regional final two straight years, but now they’re in Class 1A with the Panthers, so there could be another meeting in February.

The Panthers, whose opener was postponed by snow last Friday, and the Bayhawks were well-matched as Chesapeake, which trailed by as many as 10 points in the second quarter, rallied to take a 47-44 lead into the fourth quarter.

After the Bayhawks pulled ahead 54-51 on Tamara Stanford’s layup off a feed from Trinity Horton with 4:05 left in the game, Robinson, who played at St. Frances last year, took over.

The sophomore guard scored the next nine Pikesville points. Her 3-pointer off a pass from Keante Lewis gave the Panthers a 60-55 lead with 3:15 to go.

As they had much of the game, the Panthers could not sustain enough momentum to put the game away against a Chesapeake team that matched their quickness. The Bayhawks rallied to within one and trailed just 65-63 after Pikesville fouled Horton on a 3-point attempt and she hit two of the three free throws with 12.9 seconds to go.