St. Paul’s girls cruise to 60-40 win over No. 8 Catonsville

Long Reach boys rebound with lopsided victory

Defense, hustle and 31 combined points from the St. Paul’s junior backcourt of Destiny Ryles and Alex Sawyers proved to be the difference in the Gators’ 60-40 victory at No. 8 Catonsville on Monday night in girls basketball.

Ryles led all scorers with 18 points and Sawyer added 13 for the Gators (5-0).

After the Comets fell behind early, two free throws by Larrie Sydnor (team-high 11 points) pulled Catonsville within one, 9-8, but that was the closest the score would get the rest of the night.

A 3-pointer by Sawyers, one of three she made in the first half, sparked a 9-0 run that ended with Ashley Dickey’s two free throws at the end of the quarter.

Sawyers made two 3-pointers in the second quarter when the Gators extended their lead to 33-19 at halftime and she added a fourth 3 in the fourth quarter to end a scoring drought.

She praised her backcourt partner for getting her the open looks.

“Destiny is a good playmaker and she always finds the open shooter,” Sawyers said.

The Gators also held their own on the boards against the bigger Comets.

“We just make sure to box out because we are smaller and quicker then other teams and we play better defense and we are scrappy,” Sawyers said.

St. Paul’s coach Pat Conrad agreed.

“We don’t have any height advantage, so we try to out-scrap them and outrun them,” he said.

Ryles’ ball-handling ability makes it hard to trap the Gators.

“The girls were able to feed off of her, she’s been doing a lot better job distributing the ball,” Conrad said.

Catonsville coach Mike Mohler was aware of Ryles when he saw the Gators defeat Dulaney, 64-60, but Sawyers missed that game.

“Four [Ryles] does it all for them,” said Mohler, whose Comets won the Class 4A state championship in 2017 and was a state finalist in 2018.

That 23-4 2017-18 squad graduated three starters, including Jasmine Dickey (University of Delware) and Jameila Barrett (Norfolk State University).

“We are a work in progress and the first thing is we have to defend,” Mohler said. “There wasn’t one aspect of the game we did well. We didn’t run our offense and we gave up 60 points, so we didn’t really defend.”

The Comets finished with just 10 made field goals.

“It’s the first game and a long season and we’ve just got to get better and better and better and hopefully we will,”Mohler said. “Give credit to them. They ran their stuff and it showed.”

Boys

LONG REACH 73, WESTERN TECH 43: After starting the season with back-to-back close losses, the Lightning rebounded in a big way Monday night.

Long Reach jumped on the Wolverines from the opening tip and extended its lead from there in a nonconference rout.

Junior point guard Darelle Raymond Jr. paced the Lightning with 17 points, but his contributions extended far beyond putting the ball through the hoop. Raymond blanketed opposing ball handlers, which led to several steals and easy points for him and his teammates in transition. He also tallied six assists for a Lightning offense that eclipsed 70 points for the third straight game to start the year.

“I told him that he’s our heart and soul out there because as he goes, we go,” coach Andrew Lazzor said. “The guys feed off of his energy. They feed off of how hard he works. His demeanor in practice helps build up the rest of the guys because, you see him out there, he’s hard-working.”

Twelve of Long Reach’s 13 players scored on Monday, with junior Elijah Modeste (12 points) joining Raymond in double figures. Forwards Kwadwo Addo and Cooper Haberern, meanwhile, chipped in eight points apiece.

Western Tech received 12 points from Tyler Cook, 11 from Joaquin Rice and eight from Will Fitch. No other Wolverines player scored more than four points.

“I’m curious to see how they respond to adversity,” coach Mike Slepesky said. “It’s the first game of the year at home. We’re coming off a 3-19 season where the expectations I wouldn’t say are low but realistic that if we’re going to be better than three wins, we’re going to have to play much more composed and more fluid within the confines of what we’re trying to do here. And tonight, we just didn’t show up with all of the stuff we’ve been working on.”

A major issue for Western Tech was its abundance of turnovers that Long Reach turned into points from the get-go. The Lightning (1-2) got out to a 6-0 lead to force a Wolverines’ timeout and ended the first quarter having scored 18 of the game’s 23 points. The dominating start was a welcome sight for Lazzor, who saw almost the exact opposite from his team in its first two games. In losses at Largo and at Mount Hebron, the Lightning went down by double digits before climbing back into both games in the fourth quarter.

Raymond was pleased with the win but made sure to point out what his team can improve on going forward. After all, Howard County is loaded with quality competition, and the Lightning want to establish themselves as contenders.

“Defense and talking,” Raymond said. “We’ve got to talk more. That was more of our problem our last few games.”