Eagles Still Can't Solve Dunbar, Routed in State Semifinals, 76-50

Poised for a revenge game after being halted from a state championship by Dunbar last year, Owings Mills simply came up well short in the MPSSAA 1A Semifinal Friday afternoon at the Comcast Center in College Park.

The Eagles shot 34% from the field for the game compared to Dunbar’s 60%—including 70% (17-24) in the second half—as the Poets steamrolled over Owings Mills, 76-50, behind a game-high 22 points from senior forward Devante Wallace.

Owings Mills was never really in the game, trailing by nine after one quarter, 15 at the half and 23 heading into the fourth quarter.

“I’m not going to take anything from them—they shot well,” Owings Mills coach Richard Epps said following the game. “When you’re shooting those type of numbers and we're shooting 34 percent from the field, you’re not going to beat too many good teams.”

The Eagles (23-4) were ice cold in the first half, shooting 6-27 (22%) from the field, including an abysmal 2-13 from three-point range.  

“We just couldn’t hit any shots. That became the problem,” Epps said. “If we hit some shots they might have had to change a couple of their schemes up and it could have been a different game. But us shooting as bad as we did, them shooting as well as they did, the [basket] got bigger for them and it got tighter for us.”

The rim was especially tight early on as Owings Mills’ first field goal of the game didn’t fall until Tyson Smith (10 points) hit a runner in the lane with 3:20 to play in the opening quarter to make the score 9-3.

Despite the dry spell to start the game, the Eagles still maintained a reasonable deficit entering the second period. However, Dunbar’s Rodrick Harrison Jr. opened the quarter with a corner three-pointer to put his squad up 12 and the Poets (23-3) would go on to lead by double digits for the remainder of the game.

As the shots continued to rim out for Owings Mills, Dunbar poured on the defensive pressure with an irritating full-court press and an intense man-to-man defense. The Poets were intent on getting ahead early and tabling any hope of an Eagles’ comeback.

“We came out and took their heart,” said Dunbar forward Aaron Parham, who finished with 14 points and six boards. “Like coach was telling us all week: come out and take their heart from the jump. We beat them in the regular season, so they wanted payback.”

Parham added that his squad’s stinginess defensively—the Poets held Owings Mills to a season low in points—comes as no accident.

“We work on defense every damn practice; sliding, making sure our feet work fight, help-side defense. We came out here and worked hard,” Parham said.   

The Poets also helped their cause by answering nearly every Owings Mills basket with a hoop of their own. The Eagles longest unanswered run for the entire game was four points, occurring just once when the game was virtually in hand when a Kyle Thomas lay-in and a pair at the line from Ahmaad Wilson (team-high 15 points) made the score 50-31 late in the third quarter.

“I think our composure was lost a little bit,” senior Isaac Brown said. “I don’t think it was completely lost, but when our offense isn’t going it’s hard for us to keep going and get energized on defense. I don’t think we let our heads down early. We were taking decent shots and they weren’t falling.”

Despite a similar result to that of the two teams’ regular season meeting, Epps thought his squad played better and with more effort than the January contest which the coach dubbed a “glorified layup line.”

Epps also displayed the utmost respect for the squad that sent his team home unhappy for the second straight season.

“We lost to a quality program,” Epps said. “Baltimore is known for Dunbar. As long as Dunbar is on top, Baltimore is on top. They’ve been consistent for decades and decades.  They have the experience and the knowhow and the knowledge of how to win big games.” 

The head coach and his players can take solace in the fact that, aside from Brown, the Eagles return virtually their entire time from this season and will no longer have to agonize over Dunbar as Owings Mills bumps up to Class 2A next season.

Said Epps, “Our program is going in the right direction. As long as the pieces stay in place, we’ll be back.”

 Box Score

OM 7 10 14 19 --- 50

D    16 16 21 23 --- 76

OM: Ahmaad Wilson 15, Tyson Smith 10, Carjahn Jenkins 9, Kyle Thomas 7, Kevin McNair 3, Isaac Brown 2 , Austin Eber 2 , Tom Gamgebeli 2.

D: Devonte Wallace 22, Aaron Parham 14, Evan Singletary 9, Iakeem Alston 9, Rodrick Harrison Jr. 8, Donte Pretlow 4, Anthony Brown 4, Epenetus Henriques 2.