Falcons blanket Bruins
The 30 points given up in Tuesday’s win over Chesapeake was one of the Severna Park girls basketball team’s best defensive efforts of the year.
Three days later, the Falcons turned in an even better performance.
Playing against a Broadneck team that had won three straight while averaging 57 points in those wins, the Falcons didn’t give up a field goal until the first minute of the second half and rolled to a 50-13 victory over the Bruins.
Severna Park (8-3) won its fourth straight and hasn’t given more than 32 points during the streak.
“We’re not the best offensive team,” Severna Park coach Kristofer Dean said. “We work on defense every single day. We stop, and we adjust what we need to. We pride ourselves on defense.”
With a noticeable size advantage down low, the Falcons’ guards pressured the ball up top and forced the Bruins into several long-range shots while under pressure. When the ball did go inside, the Falcons used their size to contest and block shots, while not giving up much on the glass.
“Today we stuck to man and it worked out well for us,” Falcons’ guard Rachel Spilker said. “That team has some good outside shooters, so we didn’t want to give them the opportunities.”
Broadneck (4-5) finished with just three field goals and six made free throws. The Bruins scored just one point in the first
quarter and were in a 24-3 hole at halftime.
According to Spilker, the biggest factor was keeping constant pressure on the ball.
“I think that was huge for us,” she said. “Our guards were doing awesome and we had a system down where we were communicating and knew we who their shooters were.”
While the Falcons weren’t explosive on the offensive end, they were efficient enough to get the result. A bulk of their points came down low, with Lena McLaughlin (12 points), Hailey Betch (nine points) and Jess Albert (six points) combining for 27 points.
“I think we really worked well with passing the ball around and we took it to the hoop,” said McLaughlin, who scored all of her points in the first half. “We drove a lot, which helped.”
Camryn Chew added eight points and Campbell Kline saw considerable action in the second half and added six points for the Falcons, who have games next week with Severn, North County and Southern.
“You need to work with your strengths, and that’s what we’re doing right now,” Dean said. “Things are starting to snowball a little bit, which is good.”
The Bruins came into the game winners of their last three after dropping three straight. They’ve been led by freshman guard Nicole Hagopian, who came into the week averaging 15 points a game and had scored 20 or more in three games.
Her only field goal of the game Friday was a 3-pointer 40 seconds into the second half that was Broadneck’s first field goal of the game.
Ty Washington scored four points and three other players had two for the Bruins.