High School Basketball: Century Girls Capture First Regional Title

Behind their team defense, won their first girls basketball regional title Friday night at home.

The Knights used 28 steals to down visiting Poolesville 46-35 for the Class 2A West crown. Century moves to the state semifinals Friday at 5 p.m. at UMBC Rac Arena.

"I thought we did what we had to do," said Century coach Joel Beard. "Alice (Mercer) did a tremendous job on 24. That girl dropped 32 points Wednesday night. I don’t know how many she had tonight, but I know Alice did a great job, so did Cassidy Jones, Jamie (Clark) made some really good plays late in the game."

"We played kind of like we play all the time. Keep putting the pressure on and hopefully we can get so turnovers and good things happen."

Poolesville’s Lindsay Poss scored 32 points in the Falcons win over Catoctin. The Knights held her to six points in her final high school game. The second seeded Falcons downed Oakdale and Catoctin to reach the regional finals.

The top seeded Knights stopped and Walkersville on way to the regional final.

The first quarter went back and forth before Tess Nichols sunk a free throw to give Century a 9-8 lead at the end of the first quarter. The second quarter saw the Falcons come back to take a 13-12 lead at the 5:43 mark on a three point basket by Kelly Hughes.

Century came back 44 seconds to retake the lead which they would hold for the rest of the game on a three pointer by Cassidy Jones. The Knights were up 15-13 at the half.

Century’s Jamie Clark got her third foul 15 seconds into the second half, by senior Angela Flister took over inside and scored six of the Knights 11 points in the third quarter. Century was up 26-19 after three quarters of play.

Clark came back in for the fourth quarter and scored nine of her team high 14 points to keep Poolesville from getting back in the game. Senior Alice Mercer in her last home game poured in five of her 11 points. The two combined for 14 of the Knights 20 points in the final eight minutes of play.

Also scoring for the Knights was Flister with six points, Nichols, Jones and Brooke Snyder with five points each.

"Ang (Flister) came up big, Brooke Snyder, I’ll tell you who else deserves some credit is Allyson Belknap. She doesn’t play a lot for us, she plays good defense and she gave Alice some time to get a break. Our two sophomores in Nichols and Snyder and Vicky Perrone. I am just so proud of them because, no body picked us to do anything this year and the kids approach this year is we just want to win," Beard said. 

Poolesville was led by Whitney Carmack with 11 points, while Kelsy Carnahan had seven, Poss had six, Hughes and Jocelyn Budmer had four each and Rosie Barry had three.

The Knights are now 23-2 as they build on the first Century girls team to notch 20 wins.