No. 1 Mount Saint Joseph rallies to inch closer to BCL regular-season crown
No matter the circumstances, No. 1 Mount Saint Joseph basketball has a firm belief that it can figure it out by game’s end.
That confidence comes from the hard work at practice, where every late-game situation is covered.
Trailing St. Maria Goretti in the closing two minutes Wednesday night, seniors Amani Hansberry and Sean Clark took the initiative, and the host Gaels secured a resilient 54-53 win that puts them in position to claim the Baltimore Catholic League title later this week.
Mount Saint Joseph improved to 32-3 overall and 12-1 in league play and can capture the regular-season crown with a win at Archbishop Spalding at 7 p.m. Friday. Goretti, which claimed a 54-52 home win over Mount Saint Joseph on Jan. 11, fell to 24-5 overall and 12-2 in league play. A Spalding win on Friday would make Mount Saint Joseph and Goretti the league’s co-regular-season champions.
Mostly out of rhythm on offense for the first three quarters against Goretti’s quality defense, Hansberry, an Illinois commit, scored seven of his game-high 18 points in the deciding fourth. With just under two minutes to play, he tied the game at 51 with a jumper near the free-throw line. On the Gaels’ next possession, he worked his way underneath the basket and, after drawing extra attention from the defense, found Clark in the left corner for a 3-pointer that gave Mount Saint Joseph a 54-51 lead.
After Goretti got a basket from Jahsan Johnson to cut the lead to 54-53 with 35 seconds left, the visitors got a defensive stop to get the ball back with 13 seconds to go. But Clark stole the inbound pass and burned some time off the clock before missing a layup. Goretti’s desperation shot at the buzzer was well off the mark.
“It’s been instilled in us all season,” Hansberry said. “We’ve had our ups and downs, but you really just got to dig deep and find a way to win, and coach [Pat] Clatchey and all the assistants are always reiterating that to us. Have some heart, have some pride and we did what had to do to get the win.”
Goretti was first to battle back from adversity on Wednesday. With star center Caleb Embeya missing much of the middle quarters because of foul trouble, the visitors trailed 30-21 at the half.
After Embeya returned with 2:30 left in the third quarter and Jarvis Wright and Justin Cheung each hit 3-pointers, Goretti tied the game at 36 when Dionte Alexander scored on a tough driving layup.
Trailing 42-38 to start the fourth quarter, Goretti opened with six straight points, including an inside basket from Embeya and two straight buckets from Alexander, to take a 44-42 lead. The visitors led by three twice before Mount Saint Joseph pulled through. Hansberry converted a 3-point play to tie the game at 49 with 2:35 to go before hitting the jumper and setting up Clark’s 3 to give the Gaels the lead for good.
As for the deciding shot, Clark was ready for his chance to help make the difference.
“I was open, so I said in my head when I get the ball, I’m going to shoot it,” said Clark, who finished with seven points. “I missed two earlier, but I didn’t get defeated and always say keep shooting the ball.”
Ace Valentine scored 12 points and Austin Abrams added 11 for the Gaels, while Hansberry also put together a strong night on the boards.
“Just a hard-fought game and we got down and just fought back and found a way to get the job done,” Clatchey said. “We got one more game Friday night at Spalding and if win that we’re the BCL regular-season champs.”
Before the game, Clatchey was presented a game ball for moving into third place in wins for a Maryland boys high school basketball coach earlier this month. Former Goretti legend Cokey Robertson, who Clatchey most recently passed on the all-time list, was in attendance and presented the ball.
Clatchey, in his 31st season at Mount Saint Joseph, has 784 wins, trailing only DeMatha legend Morgan Wooten (1,274) and Wicomico’s Butch Waller (896).
Other boys basketball scores:
Catonsville 73, Woodlawn 60: Senior Colin Harshman scored a game-high 31 points and grabbed 12 rebounds to lead host Catonsville to a 73-60 over Woodlawn on senior night.
Woodlawn’s Tamar Simms scored the first point of the game, but Catonsville (13-7) responded with 11 straight and all five seniors, who were honored before the game, scored in the first quarter.
Harshman made three 3-pointers in the opening stanza and corralled four rebounds. Seniors Romhai Getachew and Aaron Mekonen added treys, and classmates Ethan Taylor and Nic Brogdon scored two points each.
After the Comets’ 11-0 run, Woodlawn countered with eight straight points to get within two. Simms had five points, and Corey Palmer and Joel Keihn had four each in the opening period for the Warriors (6-11).
The Comets extended the lead to 36-21 at the half as junior Mike Owens came off the bench and scored 10 points and had two steals in the second quarter and Woodlawn struggled shooting from the perimeter. The Warriors didn’t hit a 3-pointer until Brian Vandiver made one with 18 seconds left in the game.
“We’ve got to be more consistent with the shot selection and also with turnovers,” Woodlawn coach John Dixon said. “At crucial times, we didn’t handle the ball well, and also we didn’t step up on their jump shots.”
— Craig Clary
St. Mary’s 62, Severn 59: Not a single member of St. Mary’s has experienced the bitter taste of losing to rival Severn in three years.
They have no intention of ever doing so again.
At their core, amid the rancorous gym packed with screaming Severn and St. Mary’s fans, the battery driving the Saints to their 62-59 victory was not just their skill or game plan.
“It just means everything to win that game,” senior Casey Smith said. “We’ve been taught that since we were freshmen. All the role models, all the people above us tell us losing to Severn is probably the worst feeling. So we just try not to do that.”
Smith spun to life when his team needed him to after the Admirals erased a St. Mary’s lead in the second quarter.
“Casey’s hit big shots for us all year,” St. Mary’s coach Trey Quinn said, “and he really competes on the glass. Those two things get us extra possessions offensively, and he gets some space ... he can knock them down.”
With the win, the Saints (19-1) cement the top seed in next week’s Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association B Conference playoffs. Despite the overwhelming volume that fills up the Saints gym when the Admirals come marching in, Quinn was grateful for it.
“It basically was just like a playoff atmosphere,” he said.
St. Paul’s 7 6 , Indian Creek 6 9 SouthRiver69,ChesapeakeSciencePoint46 Overlea 8 6 , Carver A&T 3 4
Chapelgate 6 4 , Friends 3 6
Glen Burnie 7 3 , Broadneck 5 2
Meade 8 7, Chesapeake-AA 3 1
Severna Park 7 7, Crofton 4 9
Arundel 7 0 , North County 5 2
Gerstell Academy 5 9 , AACS 4 5 Manchester Valley 6 6 , Westminster 4 8 Fallston 6 3 , Rising Sun 5 0