North County Girls Drop Playoff Game to Severna Park, 56-52

The North County girls’ basketball team had a disappointing finish to an otherwise successful season, losing to visiting Severna Park in the first round of the Maryland 4A basketball tournament, 56-52. Denver Clyde scored a game-high 27 in the loss for the Lady Knights.

The game was played very differently on either side of halftime, with Severna Park (14-9, 13-5 league) controlling the first half, while North County (14-7, 10-7 league) dominated the second. This was largely due to the variation in the way in which the game was officiated, with the first two quarters favoring the Lady Falcons’ fast, attacking style, and the second half tilting toward the Lady Knights’ ball movement and inside game.

In the first two quarters, Severna Park used a high-energy, aggressive attacking style of defense to deprive the Lady Knights of the ability to move the ball easily on offense, resulting in critical turnovers.

The Lady Falcons took advantage of North County’s errors to run their fast break offense, and at the break they had a lead of 34-18.

“We like to run the ball and push it up the court,” Severna Park head coach Carrie Weimer said.

“We dug ourselves a hole early,” North County head coach Al Pindell said.

In the first half, Severna Park’s 5-2 Sophomore guard Mikayla Jerkins netted 17 of the 21 points she scored in the game.

“She [Jerkins] has been our leader, even though she’s only a sophomore,” Weimer said. “She plays much bigger than her height.”

During the first half, North County complained repeatedly that, on defense, the Lady Falcons were holding the Knights.

“That happens sometimes,” Pindell said. “The only thing you can do is cajole and make appeals.”

After the teams left the court at halftime, Clyde, the Lady Knights’ leader, made the extraordinary gesture of returning to the floor to speak to the referees.

“I told them that the girl that was guarding me [Erin Crowley] was holding my jersey and that they weren’t calling it,” Clyde said.

When the game resumed in the third quarter, there was an obvious change in the way the game was called by the officials, as Severna Park picked up eight fouls in the frame, many of which were for defensive holds. North County was only called for two fouls during the same stretch.

“The fouls were very uneven. There’s no way North County had only two fouls in the third quarter,” Weimer said.  “We’ve not had many consistent referees this year.”

With the calls suddenly going their way, the Lady Knights surged back into the game, and closed the gap to seven points entering the final quarter. Clyde scored 18 of her 27 points in the second half.

There were residual effects resulting from the change in the tempo of the game. The crowd, seeming to believe that calls in the game might be influenced by outside pressure, became more intimidating toward the game officials whenever a whistle was blown in the second half.

The players also sensed the change, as many of them began to complain to officials openly after calls, and some even turned to the frenzied crowd and gestured dramatically to accentuate their complaints.

With the tighter officiating, the Lady Knights were able to whittle the Severna Park lead down to one point with just under two minutes remaining in the game, but the Lady Falcons held on for the win.

“It’s the playoffs and North County came to play, but we pulled through it and stuck together,” Weimer said. “One player’s not going to beat us.”

Afterwards, Pindell reflected on a milestone season for North County.

“I commend our kids for battling back and making a game out of it,” Pindell said. “They fought so hard and I’m very proud of them. We won 14 games this year and they can’t take that away from us.”

North County’s Ayonche’ Clash contributed 11 in the loss, while Severna Park’s Dani Cox netted 14.

Severna Park now moves on to face another Anne Arundel competitor, South River (15-6, 13-2 league), which had a first-round bye.