ANNAPOLIS 62, BROADNECK 61 (OT) Ross saves Senior Night

Underclassman’s FG with 4.3 seconds left in overtime lifts Panthers

The Annapolis senior boys basketball players did not want to leave the floor losers on their Senior Night, but it took a combined effort to make it successful Friday night.

Squaring off against a Broadneck team that was riding an eight-game winning streak, the Panthers were led by their seniors and nipped the Bruins 62-61 in overtime to take a stranglehold of the top spot in the Anne Arundel County standings.

Craig Pratt tallied a team-high 20 points while fellow senior Demari Turner scored the first six points of the game and finished with nine for Annapolis, which improved to 12-1 in the league and 16-3 overall with three games remaining.

Meanwhile, the Bruins (12-7 overall, 9-4 county) fall into a third-place tie with North County, which lost to Northeast on Friday night. The Eagles remain in second but are in sole possession of the spot, two games behind the Panthers.

It was a play by an underclassman, Demeiko Ross, that decided the game. Ross took a pass at the foul line and split a pair of Bruins’ players for the stop-jumper with 4.3 seconds left in overtime to give the Panthers the win.

“I was just thinking get to the hole and jump-stop, get the W for my team,” an exuberant Ross said. “I just wanted to get the win and keep us on track to go to the states.”

Although Annapolis coach Dan Smalley relies heavily on his seniors, he had no problem with an underclassman having the ball in his hands for the deciding shot.

“We take it how we can get it,” he said. “We’ve played a lot of games recently, including [Thursday] night and our legs were a little tired. We have other guys that can play and they were able to hit big shots.

“[Demeiko] was under control on the winning play. As long as he is under control with his jump-stops, he usually makes good decisions that way. We’re not trying to take on [Broadneck’s Logan] Vican one-on-one, but the fact that he was keeping people guessing gave himself a little opening to knock that shot down.”

Annapolis ran out to an early 9-0 lead on the six points by Turner and a 3 by Pratt, and Broadneck didn’t score until there were 4 minutes, 20 seconds left in the quarter. The play went back and forth for the rest of the stanza, and the Panthers took a 15-7 lead into the second.

The next eight minutes saw the Bruins eat into the deficit, but the hosts went into intermission with a 27-20 lead. Broadneck’s Vican led all scorers with 11 points, while Annapolis was led by Turner’s eight points and Pratt’s seven.

Annapolis increased its lead to double-digits after three quarters, 43-32, and led by as many as 14 with just under three minutes left in the frame.

That’s when Vican took over. He netted nine points in the fourth quarter, Josh Ehrlich (13 points) added a pair of 3-pointers and Brendan Davis (11 points) had a trey of his own as Broadneck outscored Annapolis 21-10 during the final eight minutes of regulation. It was an Ehrlich 3-pointer with 46.2 seconds to go that tied the score, and neither team could get a shot to go down over the remainder of the period.

Davis put the Bruins up 57-55, only to see Pratt tie it at 57-57 and a Turner free throw put the Panthers ahead by one. Vican scored the last of his game-high 24 points to switch the lead back over to the Bruins before Pratt hit another shot to change the lead again. Davis then hit a jumper to make it 61-60 with 26.1 seconds left, setting the stage for Ross’ heroics.

“It was a big night for our seniors. You never know if this will be your last game, so we just wanted to finish it out with a win,” said Pratt, who along with Turner, Mike Washington (10 points), Malik Carrol (six points) and Christian McIver were honored before the game. “It’s always a tough battle with Broadneck. It’s just like a rivalry game.

“But we just had to keep it at one play at a time and play defense.”