Lackey boys hoops upended by Calvert
Big third quarter sparks Cavaliers to senior night win
When they arrived for Wednesday’s Southern Maryland Athletic Confer- ence crossover game against visiting Lackey High School, the Calvert High boys basketball team was hoping to ride the emotional lift of senior night to a meaningful triumph against the Chargers.
Calvert (13-8 overall) may not have rocketed out of the gate, but it broke open a tight game in the third quarter en route to a 77-64 victory. The Cava- liers took a 12-point lead into the fourth quarter, extended the margin to 22 points with three minutes remaining and coasted by the Chargers (15-6) for a meaningful tally.
“On senior night, I knew the guys were going to come out and play hard,” said Calvert head coach Jeremy Kurutz, whose team will play at Chopticon in a contest scheduled for 1:15 p.m. Friday. “But what I was really most pleased with tonight was how unselfish they all played. We did a great job of sharing the basketball and everybody had a chance to play and we had balanced scoring.”
Calvert seniors Isaiah Ridley, Lesley Campbell, Desmond Creek and Levi Buck all remarked how important senior night meant to them, especially knowing that they were facing one of the top teams from Charles County and a potential foe in the upcoming Class 2A South Region tournament.
“This game meant a lot to me,” Campbell said. “We knew that we had to come out and play with a lot of intensity. We had only lost one home game all season and we did not want to lose tonight, not on senior night. We were playing one of the top teams in our league, so we had to be ready to play.”
“We had never beaten Lackey in my two other years on the team, so tonight we had to get it done,” Ridley said. “We’ve been practicing really hard and we knew how good Lackey was. They’re a very good team. We might see them again in the playoffs, so we had to come out and show that we could play with them. That third quarter, we just put it all together.”
Lackey head coach Sean Fox commended Calvert for playing with far more intensity than his squad, noting the Chargers would have to avoid flat outings in order to advance in the region playoffs. Despite the setback, Lackey should have one of the higher seeds in the region tournament and could have two home games.
“We knew that on their senior night they were going to come out and play with a lot of intensity and we just did not match their intensity in the second half,” Fox said. “We settled for too many outside shots. Calvert did a good job moving the basketball and attacking the basket. We needed to do a better job moving the ball and driving for shots. We made some shots late, but it was not enough.”
Calvert and Lackey were virtually inseparable in the first half. Jonathan Weems hit a pair of three-point field goals on consecutive possessions to
give the Cavaliers an early 14-9 lead, but the Char- gers narrowed the gap to 16-14 when Rasheed Cooley completed a con- ventional three-point play with six seconds left in the opening period.
Calvert forged its first double-digit lead of the night in the second quar- ter when a three-pointer by Creek sparked a 7-0 run for a 26-16 Cavaliers advantage. But Cooley hit a pair of three-pointers over the last four minutes of the half and Pierce Mc- Lendon added another one at the buzzer to bring the Chargers to within 3229 at the intermission.
Lackey’s Hakeem Ever- ett nailed a three-pointer to start the third quarter, but Calvert responded with a 16-2 run that included a pair of three-pointers from Ryan Rachic and another from Weems. The Chargers narrowed the deficit to single digits briefly in the third, but the Cavaliers’ Kaleb Harris and Buck pushed the lead to 56-44 heading to the fourth.
Calvert and Lackey traded buckets through the first two minutes of the fourth quarter, but the Cavaliers gained a commanding lead when Weems scored the game’s next seven points for a 67-48 lead.
The Cavaiers pushed the lead to 71-49 later largely on free throws, but the points at the charity stripe enabled them to easily withstand three belated three-pointers from Jordan Carter.