Patapsco’s Precious Kollock drives past a Winters Mill player en route to two of her game-high 21 points during the Patriots’ loss to the Falcons in the first round of the Patapsco Holiday Classic on Monday.

Westminster, Century, Winters Mill reach finals

by Bill Gates

    The Patapsco boys basketball team found itself facing Owls of a different plumage when they played Westminster High in the first round of the inaugural Patapsco Holiday Classic on Monday.
    The Patriot girls also took on a team from Westminster, playing Winters Mill in the opening round of the tournament.
    The result: City of Westminster 2, Patapsco 0.
    The Owls held off the Patriot boys, 69-67, while the Winters Mill girls pulled away for a 76-55 win.
    Westminster faced Hammond in the boys tournament finals on Tuesday after The Eagle went to press. Hammond routed Eastern Tech in the first round, 77-44.
    Winters Mills played Carroll County rival Century in the girls championship game on Tuesday. Century reached the finals by whipping Parkville, 55-28.
    The Patapsco boys were to play Eastern Tech in the consolation round, while the Patriot girls were to play Parkville.
    “We definitely want to make this tournament an annual event,” Patapsco athletic director Chris McGuinness said. “I wanted to do something for the basketball programs, and the coaches have been enthusiastic about it.”
   
Boys tournament
    Patapsco coach Will Marshall hopes his team is a little more prepared to play the green-and-gold Owls of Dundalk on Monday than it was against Westminster’s blue-and-white Owls.
    Westminster jumped out to a 10-3 lead and led by 12 points, 62-50, with four minutes remaining in the game.
    A frantic finish got Patapsco (3-3) to within two points, 65-63, but the Owls made enough free throws in the last 25 seconds to hold off the Patriot charge.
    “I’m proud that our guys fought hard to come back, but we shouldn’t have put ourselves in that hole,” Marshall said. “Westminster shot the ball well, played with passion and came ready to play. They deserved to win.
    “We had our opportunities, but we didn’t finish them.”
    Time and again, the Patriots missed open layups. Westminster, meanwhile, consistently nailed open shots from the perimeter.
    The Owls also had an answer for every Patapsco surge.
    Trailing 29-28 at halftime after trimming away at a 20-12 deficit, Patapsco took its first – and, as it turned out, only – lead of the game on a three-point play by Devin James.
    The Patriots got the ball back with a chance to extend their 31-30 lead but missed a shot, and Westminster grabbed the rebound.
    The Owls’ Aramis Wesson sank a basket to regain the lead and spark a 7-2 Westminster run.
    Jon Richardson converted a three-point play to again pull Patapsco to within a point, 37-36, with 3:26 left in the third quarter.
    Westminster ended the quarter on an 11-4 run to take a 48-42 lead into the final eight minutes.
    The Owls then scored on their first four possessions of the fourth quarter to take the first double-digit lead of the game, 56-46.
    “Sometimes you can cross over the hump after you’ve been down by a lot,” Marshall said. “But it can be tough to get that last two-three points to put you over the hump.”
    Rydel Jones, who scored eight of his 10 points in the fourth quarter, and Rowland Hailey, who scored 10 of his 16 points in the fourth, led Patapsco’s just-short rally.
    Trailing 64-52, Patapsco got a jumper from Jones, a three-pointer and a pair of foul shots from Hailey and a put-back from Jones to make it 64-61 with 1:32 remaining in the game.
    Two more free throws by Hailey got Patapsco to 65-63 with 35 seconds left, but the Owls went four-for-six from the line. Even one of their misses worked to their benefit, as the Owls grabbed the rebound and forced Patapsco to foul again.
    James finished with 16 points. Mike Hickey led Westminster (1-4) with 18 points.
    The tournament was a reunion of sorts for Marshall. Westminster coach Steve Byrnes and Eastern Tech coach Jim Book played with Marshall in a men’s club basketball league, while Hammond coach Karl Freidheim was a teammate of Marshall’s when they played at then-Western Maryland College (now McDaniel College).
    “I talked to Book and Freidheim in the offseason and they were looking for a Christmas tournament,” Marshall said. “We needed one more team, and then Byrnes got the Westminster job and signed up.”

Girls tournament
    Like the Patriot boys, the Patapsco girls found themselves in an early hole before battling back to make a game of it.
    Winters Mill (2-4) sprinted to a 20-5 lead over Patapsco (3-3) in the first quarter.
    The Patriots came back to tie the game in the third quarter but couldn’t sustain the rally to the end.
    “We came out flat in the first quarter and got sloppy in the fourth quarter,” Patapsco coach Kelly Powell said. “We’ve had one practice in two weeks. It’s not an excuse, but it did contribute.”
    Trailing 32-18 midway through the second quarter, Patapsco ripped off a 12-1 run to close to within 33-30.
    Precious Kollock (game-high 21 points) scored six points during the Patriot surge and Rachel Smith (nine points) scored four.
    Winters Mill led 39-33 at halftime, but the Patriots started the third quarter with a 9-3 run to tie the game at 42-42.
    Taquasia Lambert started with a jumper, and Smith followed with a three-pointer.
    Kollock scored on a    drive through the middle, and Lambert tied the game with a jumper.
    The effort seemed to exhaust the Patriots, however. Winters Mill responded with a 12-3 run and took a 56-47 lead into the fourth quarter.
    Kollock converted a three-point play and then sank a three-pointer to make it 58-53 with 6:28 left in the game, but the Patriots managed only two free throws by Santina Busch the rest of the way.
    “Down the stretch, we turned the ball over too much,” Powell said. “Our big girls were coming out of the game [due to foul trouble and injuries], and they were much bigger than we were. We had people playing out of position and weren’t playing our best basketball.”
    Still, the Patriots have already matched their win total from last season.
    In its last game prior to the tournament, Patapsco defeated Sparrows Point, 50-35, on Dec. 18. Kollock scored 16 points and Lambert had 12.
    “Last season, after the holiday break, we really didn’t come out as strong as we were playing before the break,” Powell said. “This tournament will help in that respect.
    “All of our pieces work, and there aren’t any more excuses for not executing. That will be our priority in January: Making things happen and creating plays for each other.”