River Hill outlasts Atholton in regional semi
During a huddle before overtime, River Hill boys basketball coach Matthew Graves said to his players, “Do you guys have anything going on after the game tonight? If you have no plans, we’re in good shape to play an extra four minutes.”
Graves wanted his players to relax and mentally reset by taking their focus away from basketball for a brief moment in Thursday’s Class 3A South Region I semifinal.
A few minutes earlier, River Hill was seemingly in control, up by nine with less than two minutes remaining in regulation. However, with their season on the line, Atholton senior guards Amir Shaheed and Deion Dent turned it on late with Shaheed hitting the game-tying 3-pointer with 16 seconds remaining.
Yet in overtime, it was River Hill’s senior guards Braden Sauritch and OJ Ndu who delivered big-time plays in a 69-65 win. Sauritch, who finished with a game-high 28 points, hit a tough go-ahead 3-pointer early in overtime and the Hawks never relinquished the lead.
“Basketball is my life,” Saurtich said. “I practice almost every day. I’ve been playing since I was 5 years old and it just means so much to me. … Last year, the way we went out I couldn’t do it again. Coming here tonight and having the game that we had, I just kind of stepped up and knew I was going to hit the shots in the big moments after all the practice I put in every day.”
Ndu followed that up with a three-point play off an Atholton turnover as River Hill took a six-point lead early in overtime. While Sauritch was massive throughout, the senior fouled out with 1:52 remaining and the Hawks up by four. He continued to lead from the bench, imploring his teammates to box out and finish.
With Sauritch out, Ndu took over as the primarily ball handler. He was one of several Hawks to step up down the stretch, as Soma Unegbu nailed a critical floater late to give River Hill the separation it needed.
The No. 2 seed Hawks advance to Tuesday’s regional final at top-seeded Long Reach.
“I take pride in that,” Unegbu said. “Knowing that last year we had a really bad time in the playoffs, I just had to watch my teammates go through that. I knew I couldn’t go through that. I knew Braden had fouled out, so I needed to step up and hit a big shot.”
Other boys basketball scores: Mt. Hebron 59, Howard 49:
Mt. Hebron coach Malik Gilmore turned toward the Vikings student section, raised his hands in the air and did his best to whip the already boisterous home crowd into even more of a frenzy.
During the final seconds of Thursday night’s victory over Howard in the Class 3A South Region I semifinals, the first playoff win for the program since he took at his alma mater three years ago, Gilmore found himself doing whatever he could to soak it all in.
“This whole season the guys have rolled up their sleeves and worked toward our goal of being able to host a playoff game here in front of our fans,” said Gilmore, a 2013 Hebron graduate. “And tonight, it was amazing to see this place packed. … Tonight was a huge step for the program.”
A 3-pointer by Ezra Yauger with 45 seconds left in the third quarter put Mt. Hebron ahead, 40-39, for the first time since the opening minute of the contest.
Howard briefly retook the lead at the end of the third quarter, but Mt. Hebron opened the fourth on a 7-0 run to take a 47-41 lead. Jones, Tai Akinlosotu (12 points) and Kenny Akinlosotu all scored baskets during those first two minutes of the period.
Howard kept battling, getting some clutch offense from Griffin Garner (11 points), to stay within one possession of the lead until the final minutes.
Mt. Hebron simply never folded. Julian Kelly (10 points) made a mid-range jumper with just over two minutes left and then combined with Jones to make 5 of 6 free throws in the final 70 seconds to seal the victory.
— Brent Kennedy, for The Baltimore Sun Severna Park 54, South River 45: While warming up for their Class 3A East Region
I semifinal at South River, Severna Park’s guards barked and hollered at one another. It turned South River’s heads, though they tried not to notice.
But it was a warning, the official end to five days of peace, which began with the Falcons’ bitter loss to the Seahawks in the county championship. Rather than responding to being routed with fire and vengeance, coach Pete Young and his Falcons took the opposite approach.
Despite the typically animated personalities that make up Severna Park’s roster, every practice this week was balanced, focused. On the bus ride to Edgewater on Thursday, Young hardly heard a word.
Even at halftime with his team holding a two-point lead, Young spoke with a casual tone. When the Seahawks knocked on the door in the fourth quarter, Severna Park kept an even keel, enough to hold South River back.
“It’s a great feeling. We were here last year, same round, this place,” senior Upton Young said. “We got taken home. We knew this one was it.”
The Falcons will play at top-seeded Stephen Decatur next Tuesday in the region final.
— Katherine Fominykh
Milford Mill 69, Overlea 58: Milford Mill guard Kam Lawson wasn’t on the team when the Millers lost to Overlea by seven points earlier in the season. But he came up big for his team during Thursday’s Class 3A North Region I semifinal.
Lawson, only a sophomore, led Milford Mill with 19 points, helping his fifth-seeded Millers earn a road upset against top-seeded Overlea, 69-58.
“I just wanted to win,” Lawson said. “Hard work with my team; we’ve been through a lot. We just wanted to win, so I did whatever I had to do to win.”
It was a physical game throughout, starting in the first quarter when Milford Mill picked up a technical foul. The chippiness remained throughout and five Millers were ejected midway through the third quarter. Two players, one from each team, started to get into it after the whistle, and coach Ryan Smith called a timeout. Five Milford Mill bench players stepped onto the court, and they were all ejected.
It was an even game for the first quarter. Overlea’s Korrie Foster had a hot hand and scored eight of his game-high 28 points in the opening frame, but the game was tied at 14.
Overlea coach Will Watts said a couple of his players were under the weather. He didn’t want to use it as an excuse since they still played, but he said the team was impacted by it. Overlea’s top two scorers, guards Korey Blair and Tjay Beckles, combined for 14 points.
Milford Mill came alive in the second quarter, opening on a 7-0 run thanks in part to forward Isaiah Howard finding his rhythm. He scored eight in the second quarter and finished with 15 points to go with 10 rebounds.
— Jake Shindel, for The Baltimore Sun
South Carroll 73, Liberty 64: Liberty has been no stranger to facing a county opponent for a third time in a playoff matchup. But years of matchups with the likes of Winters Mill and Century are now things of the past with the Lions dropping from Class 2A to 1A.
Now, it’s South Carroll’s turn to become the new late-February rival, and the Cavaliers were ready for it.
Coach Jim Carnes and his boys won the first edition of what is sure to be a tough playoff matchup for years to come, defeating the Lions for a third time this season in Thursday’s 1A West Region II semifinal.
“We really don’t like Liberty,” said Micah Puckett, who finished with a game-high 22 points. “The first time we beat them we kind of surprised ourselves a little bit. Now we know we’re the better team.”
— Timothy Dashiell
Catonsville 53, Franklin 45: Catonsville trailed Franklin by 14 points in the first quarter in Thursday’s Class 3A North Region I semifinal, but the Comets rallied behind senior Mike Owens and his cousin Gavin Edwards, a sophomore, for a 53-45 victory.
Owens finished with a game-high 21 points and four steals. Edwards scored all 17 of his points in the second half. He also had three assists, two steals, two blocked shots and three rebounds. Franklin was led by Reggie Asoluka with 15 points and 15 rebounds.
Franklin led 41-36 after a bucket by Asoluka with 6:33 left in the fourth quarter before the Comets went on 8-0 run to take a 44-41 lead. Edwards started the surge with a 3-point play and Owens took a pass from his cousin and gave the Comets (17-6) their first lead of the game on his only 3-pointer of the night with 5:22 remaining.
Two free throws by Asoluka cut the lead to 44-43 with 3:36, but Holub-Smith fed Trey Gould for a layup and the lead was three with 2:42 left.
Franklin’s Malaka Uddin got it back to within four with just over a minute left, but Edwards, who had 10 points in the final quarter, answered with a 3-pointer to seal the victory.
Lake Clifton 47 Joppatowne 40
Loch Raven 71, Pikesville 27 Patterson Mill 61, Havre de Grace 60 Broadneck 70, Leonardtown 60 Meade 63, Crofton 54
Long Reach 66, Centennial 53