Defending 1A state champion Pikesville tops Francis Scott Key, 52-46

Monday night’s Class 1A South Region girls basketball semifinal was a back-andforth battle pitting defending 1A state champion Pikesville, this year’s Baltimore County champion, against Carroll County champion Francis Scott Key.

In a game that lived up to the hype, Mariah Jones-Bey scored 23 points to lead the No. 9 Panthers to a 52-46 win and a spot in Wednesday’s regional final at Loch Raven.

“We knew it was going to be a tough game going in,” Pikesville coach Mike Dukes said. “We got a lot of respect for them.”

The Eagles had moments in games this season when they started slow and dug themselves into a hole, but the opposite happened Monday as they scored the game’s first six points. Propelled by a hot start from Drew Watkins, the Eagles finished the first quarter up one.

“We studied them knowing we could face them and I know they had been following us,” Dukes said. “They attacked us.”

The Eagles’ “strength in numbers” mentality that propelled them to 19 wins was on display. Watkins, who finished with 17 points, was joined by the talented guard tandem of Summer Brooks and Abby Rieger as the offense continued to flow. The Panthers struggled to get back on defense after several missed layups, allowing the guards to find Watkins down the court for easy layups.

Despite the Eagles’ success, Jones-Bey provided some offense for the Panthers. The freshman shot over FSK’s 1-3-1 zone, hitting 3-pointers and shredding the defense with her athleticism as Pikesville went on a run of its own to lead by eight at the half.

“She’s not the type of athlete you normally see around here,” Francis Scott Key coach TJ Develin said. “She’s just so shifty and she definitely hit some big shots for them.”

The second half started with another 6-0 Eagles run. Ally Mathis shook off some early foul trouble to score points and establish her presence down low, pulling down rebounds.

Develin went to his array of options available on the bench as Kensi Bancroft stepped up, scoring six straight points in a back-and-forth third quarter — a showcase of the Eagles’ depth that carried them throughout the season.

But Jones-Bey became too much for the Eagles in the fourth quarter. With some key rebounds from Tykeisha Hill and a dagger 3-pointer from Korai Brown, Pikesville defeated FSK in the region semifinals for the second straight year.

“We had a good week of practice and we thought we prepared well,” Dukes said. “This team’s always been resilient and today was no different.”

Fallston’s team huddle before the start of each quarter ended the same way: by passing around a ripped-up piece of paper.

Cougars coach Johnny Woods printed out a picture courtesy of The Baltimore Sun from the last meeting between his team and region top-seed North Harford. The Hawks beat the Cougars by 20 in the same gym Dec. 8. The de facto bulletin board material pushed No. 15 Fallston to a convincing road win in their Class 2A East Region I semifinal regional.

“[Woods] was like, ‘Let’s not let what happened last time happen again,’ ” junior center Ayla Galloway said. “We all took a piece of the paper and ripped it. We said, ‘We’re not doing this again. This is our time.’ ”

Galloway played a prominent role in not letting it happen again. With 55 seconds remaining in the first quarter, she subbed out, peach-faced with hands on her knees — her only break until the final minute with the game in hand.

Galloway had all 10 of her team’s first-quarter points and finished with 21, including hitting 7 of 8 foul shots in 30 minutes of play.

“We came in here with so much energy,” Galloway said. “We were hit in the heart from that [last loss] . ... We needed to come in here and hit them in the heart. Coming in I knew they were going to guard me, but in the middle there was some space and I just took it.”

Fallston 39, North Harford 23:

Monday night’s game mirrored similar circumstances from last season’s regional semifinal. History repeated itself with Fallston again knocking off the Hawks, now with a chance for a regional championship on Wednesday against Harford Tech.

— Sam Cohn

South River 54, Broadneck 45: South River faced an energy blackout on Monday. Though they carried a considerable nine-point lead into the half, the second-seeded Seahawks watched their offense, lead and chances of making it to the Class 4A East Region II final slip away as Broadneck drove to the basket over and over again.

The Bruins pulled ahead. South River couldn’t wait until the fourth quarter to shake Broadneck off. It had to be now.

Sophomore Ryleigh Adams stormed to the net and struck. Karlee Hawkins instead battled through the maroon fray and hit another layup.

The Bruins eventually drew back even in the fourth quarter, but could never get back ahead. The Seahawks shielded their momentum through to the end, dispatching No. 6 seed Broadneck.

South River (17-6) next travels to top-seeded Severna Park for a shot at its first region title since 2005.

“It’s going to be another tough one,” Seahawks coach Mike Zivic said. “They’re very similar to Broadneck. They’re going to come at you, wear you down for a lot of court and a lot of minutes. You got to play through it.”

— Katherine Fominykh

Liberty 49, South Carroll 39: Jenna Liska and the Liberty Lions know a thing or two about winning. Monday night in a Class 2A West Region I semifinal, they learned a little bit about escaping.

The Lions built up a comfortable halftime lead, only to fight off a furious charge by an inspired South Carroll team.

Liberty (11-10) advances to Wednesday night’s regional final, where the top-seeded Lions will host Southern of Anne Arundel County at 6 p.m.

Liska led the Lions with 19 points. South Carroll’s Shannon McTavish led all scorers with 20 points, 16 of which came in the second half.

The teams split their games during the regular season, with each winning in the other’s gym. It looked like it the rubber match would be a Lions rout in the second quarter. Liberty got seven of its 15 points in the first quarter from Liska, and the Lions got 3-pointers from Liska and Paige McKnight to go on a 12-2 run to close out the first half.

Then things began to break down a little at the start of the second half.

“I think we got a little ahead of ourselves. We wanted to push the ball, but we started to* throw balls away that we usually wouldn’t,” Liska said. “The pressure started to get to us a little.”

And pressure it was. After falling behind by 14 at halftime, the third quarter was all South Carroll — and all because of its defense. The Cavaliers cut the deficit to 37-36 with 3:47 left before Haleigh Hodges made a corner 3 to extend the Lions’ lead to 40-36.

“She’s a greenlighted 3-point shooter,” Liberty coach Barry Green said. “She knows best when to take her shot, so all credit to Haleigh.”

The basket seemed to wake up the Lions, who went on a 9-3 run to end the game.

— Mike Frainie, for The Baltimore Sun

Atholton coach Julia Reynold has consistently talked about the importance of her team improving daily in different areas.

Before Monday’s Class 3A East Region II semifinal against Oakland Mills, Reynold’s point of emphasis was rebounding. The second-seeded Raiders heard their coach’s message loud and clear, dominating on the boards throughout a win over No. 3 seed Oakland Mills.

Atholton advances to face top-seed River Hill in the regional final on Wednesday.

“I have challenged the girls and asked them throughout the season every day to improve on something, what can we do better?” said Reynold, whose Raiders lost to Oakland Mills in the regular season. “What can we learn from both as coaches and players, going from game to game, how can we improve and make those corrections and go from there? That is a motivating factor, but at the end of the day, they have to come ready to play. Oakland Mills is a talented team that has shooters and is very athletic, so we just had to play our game and stay within ourselves.”

Chloe Grenway made a 3-point, trimming the deficit to five with 5:01 remaining, but that was Oakland Mills’ final field goal of the night as Atholton closed the game on a 12-3 run. The Raiders created multiple second-chance opportunities and grabbed seemingly every 50-50 ball.

Atholton 56, Oakland Mills 42: — Jacob Steinberg

Dulaney 56, Catonsville 30 Manchester Valley 44, Westminster 35 Howard 69, Mt. Hebron 15

Hereford 65, Owings Mills 31 Southern-AA 51, Century 41

Harford Tech 52, Rising Sun 51

Loch Raven 62, Western Tech 23

Havre De Grace 40, Perryville 34 Severna Park 38, North Point 32

Glen Burnie 62, Reservoir 35

Old Mill 70, Meade 38