MD 3A/4A Final Four Action Is Memorable

Ron Bailey, Publisher

Maryland 3A and 4A Final Four battles don't disappoint.

March 13, 2009 – All day yesterday at the University of Maryland's Comcast Center, contestants for eventual 3A and 4A championship glory did battle in Maryland State semifinal action. Essentially, the Free State had its 3A and 4A high school classification Final Fours.

Here are recaps.

3A Semifinal - Friendly vs Atholton

Sometimes the best plans go awry; you can be prepared for something, be totally unsurprised, and bam, that previous work makes no difference. That was the case in Atholton’s 64-37 loss to Friendly High school. Just ask their coach, 28 year veteran at the school, Jim Albert.

“We didn’t have an answer for it...baseline to baseline” said Albert of Friendly High School’s (24-3) defensive pressure, the key point in that school’s 64-37 Maryland 3A State Semifinal win over his crew. “We tried to prepare for it, and we play that way, but it’s hard to prepare for”.

Friendly’s Rob Gardner, coach at the Ft. Washington, MD school for two years, felt similarly.

Friendly's coach, Rod Gardner (right) charts not just steals but deflections, further increasing the importance of defense in his program.

“That favorite motto, defense wins championships (applies) he opined afterward. “We are not a big team and we can’t focus on that…we have to defend”.

The Patriot’s scheme of choice? “It’s just a zone trap that we look to do...it’s a defense in which we try and utilize our speed” shared Gardner, who soon thereafter noted “today it was working, in the passing lanes, rotating very quickly. A lot of times you don’t really get the steal, you make them uncomfortable”.

That Howard County’s Atholton (23-4) was, shooting just 33.3% from the field and going 0-11 from three point land, illustrates his point expertly. According to senior guard A.J. Thomas, Friendly’s leading scorer with 19 points, this was not the team’s best such performance, since “earlier in the year, we held Surrattsville to 21 points”.

Senior center Arthur Hairston led Atholton with 20 points and 10 rebounds. Of his performance, he said “I think I did a good job rebounding and my defense was good” before lauding Friendly as he admitted “their guards just out hustled us”.

“We stressed defense, like we did all year” added Friendly swingman Bryan Brooks (11 points, four boards), a senior.

Up next for friendly is Baltimore power Lake Clifton in Saturday’s 3A championship, a team with a distinct height advantage.

Atholton’s Gardner has heard that before. “They were talking about our size being our advantage” he said. “They took away our size. It (defense) just took us out of what we like to do”.

3A Semifinal - Lake Clifton vs Seneca Valley

Baltimore’s undefeated Lake Clifton (27-0) received 16 points, nine rebounds and five steals from junior swingman Will Barton, much of it buoying the Dolphins early on, and a game high 21 points plus five rebounds from senior guard Jason Sharp, outlasing Seneca Valley 63-54 in a 3A Maryland State semifinal championship. Despite these performances, along with that of junior guard Antonio Barton (14 points, three assists), a group decision seemed to seal the win.

They asked ‘Can we push up’” remembered Lake Clifton’s coach Herman Harried afterward of the suggestion his team posed late in the third quarter, after seeing a double digit third quarter lead evaporate to a two point deficit. “They make suggestions to me all the time. Sometimes I say yea, sometimes I say nea”.

The Brothers Barton, Will (5) and Antonio (2) both play crucial roles in the Lake Clifton program.

Harried’s initial hesitation regarding playing pressure man to man defense centered around he’s team’s short bench, a point that drove his comment “you can’t press for 32 minutes playing a little more than five players”; the Barton’s and Sharp all played the entire game. Resultantly his team must “pick our spots”.

According to Will Barton, the team was never vexed by fatigue or Seneca Valley’s third quarter effort, as he stated “When teams make a run at us, we don’t panic”.

Key to Seneca Valley’s (22-4) effort were sophomore point guard Michael Bulluck (16 points, six boards, three steals) and fellow second year student, forward Jordan Goodman, supplier of 12 points, six rebounds and six blocks: Bullock got to the rim repeatedly while Goodman, somewhat lackluster in the first half played markedly better in the second, including patrolling the paint defensively.

The Seneca Valley Eagles, behind those contributions, along with that of senior guard Bruce Massey (11 points, eight rebounds, four assists), were able to mount another run, reducing a 13 point fourth quarter deficit to six, but would get no closer.

“Lake Clifton is the best team I’ve coached against in 15 years” said Seneca Valley’s coach, Tom Sheahin (he has led that school for four). Nevertheless, he lamented key lapses causing his team to lose, as did Massey, who opined “It came down to two or three plays” specifically referring to that pivotal fourth quarter, noting “we missed two layups and four free throws”.

“It was a great effort, both teams showed a lot of fight” said Lake Clifton’s Harried, the school’s 12th year coach, of the game. Expect the Dolphins to approach their Saturday 3A championship battle similarly.

Click here for MD 4A Final Four Recaps