‘Was just so happy’: St. Mary’s completes perfect season
Magical ride for Saints results in 1st conference title since 2013
Perfection.
At the beginning of the season, St. Mary’s coach Chuck Miller couldn’t have envisioned it. Even when the Saints were unbeaten and on the verge of the Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland B Conference championship game, even when they were leading by double digits in the second half of the final, perfection was never a given.
But St. Mary’s, thinking about how awful a first loss would feel this late in the season, kept battling through every St. Timothy’s challenge in Monday’s Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland B Conference championship game at Harford Community College’s APGFCU Arena. The final sections ticked away. Baily Walden had the ball, passing it back and forth with Bailey Harris until the Saints finished it.
With a 68-58 victory, the top-seeded Saints captured their first title since 2013 without losing a single game — a feat no St. Mary’s girls basketball team had accomplished before.
The Saints hugged each other on the floor before the student section rushed to join.
“I just cried,” said Harris, who finished with 24 points. “I was just so happy. We worked so hard this season and everyone was imagining what it would be like to win, but no one knew how it would feel. And this is just the beginning.”
The Saints (27-0) don’t graduate any starters and lose just a few players overall. Thinking about what that means for the future, Miller grew a wondrous smile on his face.
“I’m a pessimist all the time. But if these kids are going to be around St. Mary’s for four years, St. Mary’s gonna be around here for four years,” Miller said. “And good kids attract good kids. If all goes according to schedule, we’re going to be pretty good.”
St. Timothy’s freshman Karmen McDuffie spoiled St. Mary’s chances of running away with it. She glided from the bench to rancorous applause and soon proved why. The guard drilled a pair of 3-pointers to give her team a 12-9 lead. She backed up La Salle signee Aryss Macktoon, who finished with a game-high 28 points.
Missed shots could be fixed. The Saints struggled to activate their offense in the semifinal against Concordia Prep and finished with a 13-point win. But foul trouble was different. Harris had two fouls and the Saints had seven less than two minutes into the second quarter.
But St. Mary’s turned the tide.
Out of a timeout, freshman Alex Vandiver (12 points) gave the Saints control. Walden (14 points) and junior Mia Novak added their own baskets. Harris began drawing fouls and hit 5 of 6 from the line as St. Mary’s led 35-25 at the half.
Saints ballhandlers quickly fell victim to St. Timothy’s suffocating defense, barely making a pass before players descended on the Saints.
St. Mary’s still isn’t quite sure how it weathered the storm.
“Adrenaline,” Harris said. “It was hard to stay calm with that pressure, but we were just like, ‘Let’s play our game. We got this.’ ”
St. Mary’s preserved a double-digit lead long as it could — even as the fouls against both sides mounted.
Up 48-37 into the fourth, St. Mary’s made good use of a timely stroke of luck. Macktoon suffered her fourth foul, and coach Vernon Harris benched her for safe-keeping. In that time, the Saints continued to build on its lead.
The Saints clung to the lead while pieces of their defense fell away. Novak fouled out first, then Vandiver. St. Mary’s couldn’t reel its defense back in truth, because St. Timothy’s would — and did — take advantage. Macktoon and McDuffie drew power from the moment, but those were a pair of weapons for St. Timothy’s; St. Mary’s had five at all times.
Walden and Harris each hit clutch foul shots and kept St. Timothy’s at arm’s length the rest of the way.
“As long as we have somebodies on our side that can score as many, I guess it’s OK,” Miller said.
Indian Creek wins C Conference title
Fourteen seconds showed on the clock and Abbey Bunker took the ball running. Her older sister, Molly, positioned herself under the basket, ready to receive Abbey’s pass. The moment rested on her.
If she made this basket, Indian Creek would force overtime and still could become champions.
Technically, senior Haley Selmer’s free throw sealed the victory, but coach Casey Corkin knew when Molly Bunker made her shot that his team had finally done it. The Eagles had taken that extra step and truly fought when defeat stared at them in the face. Bunker sent Monday’s IAAM C Conference title game to overtime, where her Eagles beat Park School, 43-37, for its first title in six years.
“We had the momentum going, we slowly lost it, but they kept fighting,” Corkin said. “We’d done that all year, but this is the first time we actually won a tight game. We’d been close, but never got over the hill. They did it on the best day to do it.”
It was after a regular-season game against Park when Indian Creek began to believe in itself. It seemed only fitting that it would be the Bruins that the Eagles face for their ultimate prize.
“I’m in shock,” Molly Bunker, who scored 12 points, said. “In the beginning of the season, we had such a small team. We were scrapping for it, even for having players. But we had so much grit and toughness. We pushed through and now we’re here.”
A 6-4 first-quarter Indian Creek lead was borne of two sides wrestling through a stalemate. But Indian Creek took the edge in one vital stat: rebounding. With enough second chances, the Eagles began to pull away.
The Bruins struggled to hold on to the ball. Possession after possession ended up with the ball in Indian Creek’s hands, often directly leading to Eagles’ points. Abbey Bunker, affectionately called the “X-factor” by her coach for her defensive skill, easily raced past Park’s guards for a layup.
“She did a great job today, just helping all over the place,” Corkin said. “She was a ballhawk over there. [Holmes], [Sophie Zirkin] over there are great shooters, and Abbey was there to help make it really hard for them to get good shots off.”
Selmer, who led the Eagles with 24 points, got in on the act, stealing the ball, driving for a basket and converting the 3-point play.
The Eagles got their confidence back and led 19-9 at halftime, and took a 27-20 advantage into the fourth quarter, but knew it was fragile. Zirkin made a jumper that whittled Indian Creek’s advantage to just one point, 27-26. Holmes put an offensive rebound back in for Park’s first lead.
Indian Creek was scoreless four minutes into the fourth quarter. Even its bigs, once fairly free to move as they pleased, succumbed to Park’s pressure. Turnovers mounted while their score went unchanging.
Park led 32-27 with less than two minutes remaining. Selmer spurred Indian Creek’s rally, scoring first before shifting the torch to Molly Bunker, who put Indian Creek ahead, 33-32.
“I think we realized that we had it in us,” Bunker said. “We had the skill, the talent, we just had to push through. That changed our mindset throughout the season.”
Holmes scored a go-ahead 3-pointer, but left 14 seconds for Abbey Bunker to connect with her sister on the tying basket.
The Eagles monopolized overtime. In their hearts, they’d already won.
“We made some baskets when we really needed to,” Molly Bunker said, “when they really counted.”