SEVERNA PARK 49, PERRY HALL 36 Ounce of prevention perfect cure for Falcons

Defense enables Severna to weather dry spell on offense

A run against Perry Hall helped the Severna Park boys basketball team take control Saturday afternoon.

What might have helped the Falcons more was a run they prevented in the second half.

Leading by 10 in the third quarter, Severna Park went scoreless for more than three minutes. The Falcons defense was up to the task, though, and only let the Gators cut into the lead some. Severna Park rebounded from its lackluster third quarter and put the game away in the fourth, defeating Perry Hall 49-36 at the Severna Park Winter Jam.

“Every game is going to have some runs,” Severna Park coach Paul Pellicani said. “You try to minimize them and not let them become catastrophic.”

Severna Park (6-2) had more margin for error in the third thanks to a 12-2 run over the final five minutes of the first half. The

Falcons fell behind 15-13 with a little more than five minutes left but went into the half with a 25-17 lead.

Perry Hall’s Sameer Iqbal hit a pair of free throws at the 3:18 mark that cut Severna Park’s lead to 18-17, but the Falcons scored the last seven points of the half to take an eight-point lead after a first half that included seven lead changes.

“We talk a lot about handling adversity, and every game there is some,” Pellicani said. “This team believes in each other, they like each other, they play hard for each other, and I think that’s what you’re seeing.”

Jacob Goodman led the Falcons with 13 points, two assists and two rebounds Saturday. He hit three 3-pointers during the second-quarter run and scored down low late in the third quarter to help the Falcons extend their lead to five heading to the fourth.

“That run in the second quarter was definitely the biggest part of the whole game,” he said. “The basket started to open for everyone.”

Perry Hall got as close as three points early in the fourth, but the Falcons responded. Joe Harrington (four rebounds) had five of his 10 points in the fourth and the Falcons went 7-for-10 from the foul line in the quarter to hang on to the lead.

Declan Fox hit a pair of 3-pointers in the first half and finished with 10 points for the Falcons, who’ve already won six games this year after finishing with eight victories last year.

Orion Young scored four of his six points in the fourth quarter and finished with a team-high seven rebounds for the Falcons.

“I thought it was a real team effort at both ends of the court,” Pellicani said. “Offensively, I thought we shared the ball, we had ball movement and we had unselfish play, with guys giving up a good shot to get a better shot.”

Timmy Adedire scored 16 points to lead Perry Hall. Ten of his points came in the second half as the Gators tried to complete the comeback after falling behind in the second quarter.

“We had a slow start in the first half,” Perry Hall coach Joe Carlineo said. “We held them to 25 points, but we just couldn’t put the ball in the basket. We kept emphasizing getting the ball inside. Give them credit — they kept us out of there.”