By John Fales
For DigitalSports.com
The whole season, Poolesville’s boys basketball team’s number one focus has been defense. In Friday’s first round of playoffs, the Falcons showed that isn’t stopping in the playoffs.
After shutting out Clear Spring throughout the entire first quarter, Poolesville beat the 1A West foe, 57-38, Friday night in the first round of the region playoffs.
The Falcons were again led by Brendan McFall, who scored a team-high 20 points.
“I never expected to shut a team out like that in the first quarter,” Coach Tom Lang said. “That really established a lot of momentum and gave our guys a lot of confidence.”
Poolesville was also given a big lift by the return of sharp shooter Kevin Baker from an ankle injury. He scored 18 points in the game, including two three-pointers.
“The team really came together in tonight’s game and it showed out on the court,” Baker said. “Our defensive intensity was visible through the whole game and our offense was sharp. As we get deeper into the playoffs, we just have to continue to take steps forward and keep up the teamwork that has put us in this situation.”
The game was scoreless through the first four minutes of the opening quarter, and there were chances for both teams to jump out in front. The problem was, neither team could get the ball into the cylinder.
By the end of the first quarter, Poolesville was up 7-0. Poolesville has not allowed an opponent to reach 40 points in the past eight games and hopes to continue that deeper into the playoffs.
“As a team, we need to keep up the defensive intensity and stay mentally sharp and we will continue to have success throughout the playoffs,” junior guard David Schramm said.
The Falcons finally found the net half way through the first quarter and never looked back.
Chris Soper was the biggest and strongest player on the floor, and he took advantage when it came to hitting the boards. Soper had a couple big plays on the boards early and played strong defense in the paint all game long. He finished with 10 points before fouling out in the fourth quarter.
Once Clear Spring started scoring in the second quarter, it continued scoring consistently, but could never catch the Falcons’ pace.
The bright spot for Clear Spring was Kyle Crist, who led Clear Spring in scoring with a game-high 21 points, 18 of which came in the second half. Twelve of his 18 points were tallied from the four long range three-point shots he made.
Poolesville’s offense came out smoking hot in the second quarter, scoring another 7 points to make the score 14-0 after the first two minutes and 13 seconds.
At halftime, Poolesville was up 23-8 behind McFall’s 11 first-half points. Baker also was able to find his groove quickly after missing a few games, scoring nine in the second quarter.
Clear Spring was led by Brandon Glazer in the first half, who scored five second quarter points.
In the second half, there may have quite possibly been a record number of fouls committed by Clear Spring, which triggered a record number of foul shots by the Falcons. They shot just under 50 percent from the free throw line in tonight’s game, converting only 17-35. Of those 35 free throws, 27 were taken by the Falcons in the second half.
“Tomorrow we are going to work on free throw shooting a lot to help us get ready for Monday,” Lang said.
Poolesville Girls Beat Williamsport
The final score was 39-28, as the Poolesville girls basketball team was able to beat Williamsport in each quarter by a small margin, and get the victory in front of the home court fans Friday night in the first round of the 1A West region playoffs.
The Falcons were led by Christy Lowe, who scored 14 points. Liza Jones also added 10 points, including a couple three-pointers.
The score was 11-6 after the first quarter. The keys to the Falcons early lead was solid rebounding and good defense including a good blocked shot.
Poolesville led by six points at halftime, 21-15.
A late three-pointer by Kelly Beard of Williamsport gave their team confidence going into the break. The bucket was her third deep ball of the half. The shot cut the Falcon lead from nine to six going into the half, which had Falcons Coach Randy Berger fired up.
Lowe led the Falcons in the first half with six points. Liza Jones had five points in the first half.
The third quarter played out well for the Falcons, as they were able to increase the lead a couple points to 28-20. Jessica Chittenden was having a good game despite some foul trouble. She picked up her fourth foul and was forced to take a seat for a portion of the second half.
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