High School Basketball: Century Wins Battle of Eldersburg

started the new year capturing both games in a doubleheader over Wednesday evening.

The Knight girls went first and won 56-37. The Century boys finished the night with a 62-43 victory over the Lions.

The Knight girls were led by Jamie Clark with 15 points and Alice Mercer with 11. Also scoring for the victors were Tess Nichols with nine, Cassidy Jones and Victoria Perrone each had seven, Haley Bordner had six and Angela Flister tossed in one.

Century jumped out a 14-6 lead after the first eight minutes of play and stretched the lead to 28-10 by halftime.

"Their two big girls are tough on us, as we don’t match up particularly well," said Century coach Joel Beard. "I thought we had a lot of good in the first half. We took things away from them. We fouled a little too much in the second half, but overall I was pleased. I thought Victoria Perrone hit some big shots for us and I thought Jamie, Angela and Haley Bordner held their own," said Beard.

"I am not going to say they shut them down because I don’t think anyone will, but we held our own. I thought Mercer had a pretty good ball game. One tough one to go on and another tough one coming Friday at Westminster." 

Kelly McCormick led Liberty with 24 points. Liberty also got six points from Hailey Marlatt, five from Christine Johnson and Taylor Sprague added two.

"They have a really aggressive defense and our offense wasn’t meshing. When you get an aggressive defense and an offense that isn’t meshing it doesn’t turn out to well. We have Winters Mill on Friday, so hopefully we will have our offense meshing together well and that will be a different game," said Liberty coach Jessica Morgan.

Century improved to 3-1 in the county and 8-1 overall. The Lions drop to 2-2 in the county and 3-6 overall.

The Century boys remain undefeated for the season with the victory. The game was close after the first period as Century held the lead 19-14. The second eight minutes belonged to Century as the held Liberty to four points while tossing in 14.

The Knights are 4-0 in the county and 9-0 overall. Liberty is 1-3 in the county and 1-8 overall.

"We need to do a better job of moving the basketball offensively," said Century coach George Wunder. "When we start spreading the ball around and play together offensively we a better team. I really wasn’t pleased on the offensive end tonight. I was very pleased with the defensive effort our kids gave us, especially that second quarter as we stepped up and held them to four points. It was a big quarter. Overall definitely pleased with the win. We just have to keep working to get better."

Senior guard Mitch Sleight led the Knights with 18 points. He had three three-pointers in the first half. Fellow senior Evan Fritsche also was in double figures with 11 points. Chris Tan added nine, Billy Dickman had seven, Michael Austin, six; Drew Clark, three and Michael Ogle and Brad MacFee had two points each.

"That stretch at the beginning of the third quarter they got 10 or 12 points on drives down the middle, if we cut that out we could still make a game," said Liberty coach Jay Seaborg. "They got good shooters and good penetrators and you can’t let them do that. I thought defensively we did a good job. Offensively we were out of sink and that is something we need to keep working on."

Liberty had 10 players score in the game with Chad Barcikowski leading with 13 points. JC Farley chipped in 11; Shane Sweeney had five; Brandon Prechit and Bobby Wise each had three points; Rase Burke, Colin Orf and Juwan Dorsey each had two and Justin Murphy and Greg Pickett each had a point each.