High School Basketball: Century Captures Hoops Classic Tournament

The boys won the sixth annual Knights Holiday Hoops Classic Wednesday night over Boys’ Latin 65-51.

The Knight girls also brought home the big trophy with a 41-31 win over Upper Merion in the Sherwood Tourney. The South Carroll girls dropped a tourney game to Surrattsville 46-42 in the BBWO Holiday and Hoops Tournament.

Liberty fell to Reservoir in the consolation game of the Knights Holiday Hoops Classic 66-51.

The all-tournament team at the Knights classic was Joey Usher, Reservoir; Chad Barcikowski, Liberty; Colin Heacock, Boys’ Latin; Michael Austin and Evan Fritsche of Century. Century junior guard Chris Tan was named the MVP of the tournament.

"It was a tough two days. I don’t think we were clicking on all cylinders offense or defense but we did enough to get the wins in both of those games," said Century coach George Wunder. "I was really proud of the kids the way they stepped up and finish the game."

The Century boys held a one point lead after the first quarter 15-14. In the second quarter, the Knights held a 23-18 lead when Fritsche was fouled shooting and the Boys’ latin coach was hit with a technical. Fritsche hit on three of the four foul shots. Century got the ball and Tan was fouled and sunk both ends on an one-and-one for a 10 point lead 28-18.

Century was up 36-21 at the half. The Lakers came out of the locker room pressing the Knights and were down 48-40 after three quarters. That was as close as the visitors got as Century pulled away for the win.

"We have two solid ball handlers with Mitch and Chris. They controlled the fourth quarter. We can slow the tempo down if we need to or speed it up if we need to. Our guards have experience and have been playing for a while at the varsity level. It has been paying off for us in the fourth quarter."

Fritsche led the Knights with 25 points, while Tan added 13, Austin 11, Mitch Sleight 10 and Billy Dickman added six.

Century junior forward went down with a twisted ankle during the contest and watched the second half from the bench.

Heacock topped the Lakers with 19 points and teammate Casey Rees was in double figures with 16.

The Knights are now 8-0 for the season. Century travels to Liberty Wednesday for a boys-girls doubleheader.

In the consolidation game, Liberty stayed with the Gators for three quarters. After 32 minutes of play the game was tied at 42. Reservoir out scored the Lions 24-9 in the final eight minutes for the victory.

"We talked before the game about being more up tempo and moving more without the ball. They did a great job," said Liberty coach Jay Seaborg. "On paper it’s going to look like it was a kind of a blow out because we had to foul them in the end. It was a three, four point game right up to the last couple of minutes. One of the things we have talked about is we have to learn how to finish out games and that is not something that just happens. I thought they did a much better job."

At one point in the third quarter, the Gators had an eight point lead. The Lions came back to knot the score on a basket by JC Farley.

Farley topped the Lions with 12 points. Barcikowski had 11 and Justin Murphy had 10 to finish in double figures. Greg Pickett had seven, Shane Sweeney  six; Rase Burke three and Colin Orf had two to round out the scoring.

"A couple turnovers here and there and it’s a different game. We played them pretty well for most of the game. That last step between playing close and getting over the hump where you are actually finishing games out is the difference between having a really good record and a not so good record. Because there is a lot of games that can go either way. There is always turning points and give them credit, they played better at the turning point than we did," said Seaborg.

The Lions, who are 1-7 for the season started a junior line up to start the contest.