Warriors waste no time in win

February 21, 2007|by CHRIS CARTER / Staff Correspondent

BOONSBORO - It's hard to imagine that a game decided by 25 points was not as close as the score indicated.

But that was the case Tuesday night when Boonsboro hosted Catoctin in its regular-season home finale.

Boonsboro dominated the Cougars in the first half enough to allow the reserves to take over and keep them at bay after halftime, and the Warriors rolled to a 60-35 victory in the MVAL Antietam.

The Warriors (12-8, 9-4) hit 46 percent of their shots and held a 20-11 rebounding edge through the first 16 minutes as they rolled to a 36-10 halftime lead. Mike DeBarge scored 10 of his game-high 14 points and Adam Flook scored nine of his 11 before halftime.

"We hit the boards hard all around and we mixed up some of our defenses to confuse them," said Boonsboro coach Sam Connelly. "We moved the ball really well against their zone and we were getting some open looks. We worked a lot in practice on zones and we saw a lot of cuts, especially in the first quarter."

Boonsboro got assists on four of its first seven baskets - two on backdoor cuts by reserve Chris Selby - and kept a firm handle on the ball with no first-quarter turnovers. The Warriors used a 17-0 run to take a 23-2 lead, and a 9-0 spurt later on made it 36-8.

"We've really been playing well as a team lately," said Connelly.

Boonsboro has won three straight games since falling to Brunswick on Feb. 9.

"It started in the second half of the loss against Brunswick and spilled over against South (Hagerstown)," Connelly said. "We've kept it going."

The lead ballooned to 47-15 three minutes into the second half, which meant the gradual exit of the starting five Warriors. Catoctin (4-15, 1-11) slowly made headway on Boonsboro's reserves, but not nearly enough to warrant a look back from the Warriors.

Twelve of the 13 Warriors in uniform scored.

"We're using these last couple games to get better, that's it," Connelly said. "We look at it as our playoffs starting right now and we're going to try to get some momentum going and see what we can do. We really believe we can make a nice run."

Josh Chmelik had 11 points for the Cougars, who have a shot at redemption tonight when they host Boonsboro in the final tune-up for both teams before they open play in the Class 1A West East Sectional playoffs Friday.

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