Furious Rally Falls Short as Wolverines Lose Heart-Breaking Semifinal

It was perhaps their worst shooting performance of the season. From the first to the final whistle in Watkins Mill’s semifinal matchup against top-seeded Frederick, layups rolled agonizingly around the rim and three-pointers veered erringly off course.

Faced with a Frederick squad well accustomed to scoring 70 points in a 32-minute game, the immensity of Watkins Mill’s challenge came to bear as Frederick took early advantage of their size, depth and one-on-one talents as Lynasia Frazier and the Cadets (19-5) built a 29-14 lead early in the second quarter.

The game could easily have gotten out of hand. But the Lady ‘Rines—outmanned and under-regarded all season—refused to quit.

For long stretches this season, Watkins Mill’s offense has relied almost entirely on the prodigious outside shooting of star seniors Jasmine McRoy and Jartu Toweh. In their opening round win against Northwood, they made six three-pointers—three of them by McRoy in the first quarter alone. The team followed up with their best all-around performance of the year Tuesday night at Blake, the first quarterfinal win in McRoy and Toweh’s four years at Watkins Mill.

So as one shot after another went astray Thursday night, Watkins Mill fashioned an offense out of sheer force of will, out of offensive rebounds and tipped balls, out of strips and steals. They forged cracks in the Frederick defense and barreled to the hoop undeterred by the torrent of misses, relentlessly chasing down their errant shots. Having found their spark, they closed the second quarter with 9-1 run that  corroded Frederick’s confidence and cut their lead to 30-23.

That intensity carried over after halftime as Watkins Mill held Frederick’s high-powered offense to eight points in the third quarter—and altogether blanked Frazier, who is averaging more than 22 points per game this season.

With freshman Janessa Fauntroy asserting a stalwart down-low presence on both ends of the court, Watkins Mill scored three straight baskets to cut the lead to 32-29 on a gorgeous fast-break layup where McRoy spun across the lane around a defender trying to draw a charge.

The teams traded scores over the next few minutes—despite more exasperating Wolverine misses from in close and at the free throw line. Then the Wolverines  closed out the third quarter on a spectacular fast-break in which Fauntroy, after another of her many rebounds, fired a 40-foot outlet pass to Josepha Mbouma streaking upcourt, who then, contorting her body at full speed, flicked a perfect touch pass across the lane to an airborne McRoy for the alley-oop.

The score was 38-35.

The furious rally had whipped the more than 50 Watkins Mill faithful into a full-throated frenzy, their chant of “Defense!” drowning out a home crowd more than five times their size. The Cadets were rattled and reeling; Wolverines players were starting to really believe. It seemed as though one more Watkins Mill basket and the entire game would come unraveled.

But Watkins Mill’s errant shooting finally caught up with them in the fateful fourth quarter, and Frederick pulled away for a 62-47 win.

The Cadets opened the quarter with a drive-foul-free throw, then a three-pointer that stretched their lead to nine points. The dagger came with just over five minutes to play: a slashing drive by Rachel Johnson followed by an open-court three-pointer from Frazier. After scoring 12 first-half points seemingly at will, it was Frazier's only field goal in the second half. But it was the decisive shot that signaled the reality that Watkins Mill’s season would soon be coming to an end.

Just as they had exceeded expectations this season, the Lady ‘Rines (15-10) proved that they could match up against a powerful and dynamic opponent Thursday night.

“We have nothing to be ashamed of,” Coach Ivan Hicks told his players after the game. “You represented Watkins mill spectacularly.”

But in the immediate aftermath, at least, it was a devastating loss for the players, with McRoy inconsolable on the sideline and several players in tears later in the locker room.

“It was tough. This was me and Jasmine’s last game of our high school careers, so yeah, we both cried,” Toweh said after the defeat had sunken in. “I mean, I was proud that we played so hard, but I was still sad that we didn’t get to keep going.”

It was an especially bitter way for McRoy—Watkins Mill’s second all-time leading scorer—to close out her heralded career. She contributed in many of her usual ways Thursday night: swiping more than a dozen steals, helping win Watkins Mill’s rebounding edge and displaying her uncanny knack for the flow of the game.

But after nailing six three-pointers in Watkins Mill’s first two playoff games, she missed all of her half-dozen tries on Thursday night. The sure-shooting senior even missed six out of seven free throw tries. It was among the two or three worst shooting performances of her four years at Watkins Mill, she said.

“From my point of view, on some points it was good, but on most points it felt to me that I wasn’t doing my job, that the reason why we lost was because I wasn’t on—to help my team out by getting points and assists. It wasn’t there for me,” she said. “We really wanted this game. We just wanted to do it for Watkins Mill because this is what they wanted and nobody expected us to go this far.”

Though their unexpected run came to end, the Lady 'Rines had sparked a buzz in Watkins Mill’s hallways, said Principal Scott Murphy, one of the dozens of Wolverine faithful who made the trip to Frederick.

“I’m really proud of our kids,” he said. “This team [Frederick] came in with a big reputation of putting up 70, 80 points. They overcame that, they fought hard, so I’m just so proud of them—proud of the season they had and how they just played hard the whole game.”

WATKINS MILL:  47 points

Jasmine McRoy 15

Jartu Toweh 12

Janessa Fauntroy 11

Josepha Mbouma 8

Melanie Dakwa 1

FREDERICK: 62 points

Lynasia Frazier 18

India Dotson 15

Rachel Johnson 13

Lauren Tolson 9

Jazmin Tolson 6

Kelsey Dyson 1