Admirals surge past St. Paul’s to B final
Severn secures title shot against Gerstell
After trailing for most of the first three quarters, host Severn took the lead for good midway through the fourth quarter and held on for a 44-41 victory over defending champion St. Paul’s in a Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association B Conference basketball semifinal.
No. 12 Severn (25-5) will play Gerstell Academy on Sunday in the conference final at Harford Community College. The Admirals are shooting for their first MIAA title and first conference title of any kind since 1993 when they won a Maryland Scholastic Association title. The school’s only other boys basketball title came in 1966.
“I’m happy for these guys. It’s been a long time since our boys basketball team has played in a championship game,” said Severn coach VJ Keith, who will be coaching in his first conference final on Sunday. “We didn’t play great, but you have to give credit to St. Paul’s. We knew it was going to be a battle, but we found a way today.”
LJ Owens led the Admirals with 16 points, including a three-point play with 3 minutes, 20 seconds left in the game that put the Admirals up by five. His short baseline jumper with 1:10 left pushed the lead to six.
“We’ve been waiting for this because for three straight years we’ve gone to the semifinals,” Owens said. “We finally got it done.”
Owens had just two field goals and scored seven points in the first half for Severn, which trailed by as much as eight. After the Admirals forced a turnover in the final seconds of the half, Owens hit a jumper from just inside the 3-point line to help his team go into the locker room down by just six. He started to find some more space in the second half and scored four points in the third quarter, including a baseline jumper during a 7-0 run that tied the game at 28 heading to the fourth.
“We just looked tentative in the first half,” Keith said. “We were trying to tell them to take space and make two (players) play you to open up some space for other people. That’s what we talked about at halftime.”
Jermaine Hall scored 10 points, including a layup off a feed from Mo Terry that put the Admirals up for good. Hall also scored during the third-quarter run that gave Severn some momentum heading to the fourth.
Terry scored all eight of his points in the second half, including a long 3-pointer at the third-quarter buzzer that tied the game and were his first points of the contest.
GERSTELL 57, INDIAN CREEK 55: Colin Rimel (12 points) made a baseline jumper with less than a minute to go to lift the visiting Falcons (17-12) over the Eagles (18-4) in an MIAA B Conference semifinal.
Indian Creek used a 9-4 run to tie the score at 53-53 with 44.6 seconds left. The Eagles’ Malik McKinney led all scorers with 17 points.
CRISTO REY JESUIT 43, BETH TFILOH 39: Terry Curry scored 12 points to lead the host Hornets (15-9) in a come-from-behind victory over the Warriors (13-13) in an MIAA C Conference semifinal.
C.R. Jesuit trailed for most of the game before putting together a fourth-quarter rally.
KEY SCHOOL 67, CONCORDIA PREP 50: The visiting Obezags (8-6) beat the Saints (10-16) to advance to the MIAA C Conference championship 1 p.m. Sunday at Harford Community College. Key School led 31-26 in the first half.