Owings Mills Controls the Glass, Tops New Town, 69-64

Owings Mills head coach Richard Epps doesn’t want to go as far as saying that his Eagles have owned their backyard rivalry with New Town in recent years. He reasons that the games are always close and his squad usually sneaks by with a couple of free throws or a lucky shot to snatch the victory.

However, the fact remains that the Titans have not beaten Owings Mills since January of 2009.

That streak continued Friday night.

Eagles guard Ahmaad Wilson netted a game-high 20 points, forward Gerard Mercer added 14 more and Owings Mills (8-3) outmuscled the Titans for several key buckets on the offensive glass to provide the difference in a 69-64 win in front of a packed New Town gym.

“I wouldn’t say we’re dominating them, but right now because we’re winning the games it looks that way,” Epps said. "But, [New Town] has a real good team and we were fortunate tonight to get out of here with a win.”

With each team trading baskets seemingly every time down the floor, Owings Mills—which never led by more than eight points at any time during the game—gained the edge by creating second chance opportunities off their missed shots. Mercer, center Austin Eber and forward Deshawnte Lloyd combined for 31 rebounds—many of which came on the offensive end.

“They were getting a lot of offensive rebounds so we had to bring our intensity up on our offensive end and turn it into points,” Eber said. “That’s what did it for us in the end.”

Added New Town coach Mike Salapata, “Rebounding the ball is all effort. You got to tip your hat to their kids. They wanted the rebounds more than we did, plain and simple.”  

The Titans (8-4) were paced by senior guard Josh Gerard who tallied a team-high 15 points to go along with eight rebounds. Senior forward Devron Goodwyn chipped in with 14 points and eight boards of his own.

However, New Town hurt its chances with slow starts in both the first and third quarters and commonly found themselves settling for long jumpers as a result of the Eagles extended 2-3 zone. When guards C.J. Jacob (10 points, five assists) and Keith Wainwright (11 points) penetrated the lane to create shots the Titans finally started to find their groove.

“Our whole plan all night was to attack,” Salapata said. “Even though they play a zone—our guys think when they see a zone that that means threes. Their zone is so wide that you can attack it all day and when we did that we scored.”  

Still, on four separate occasions the Titans were able to pull within one score during the fourth quarter, but each time Owings Mills answered to re-extend the lead.

When, Jalen Clark banked home a three pointer to make the score 56-53 with a little over three minutes to play, Eagles guard Ceontay Coit—who scored six of his seven points in the final frame—responded with a spinning layup off the glass to go back ahead by five.

With less than a minute remaining, an old fashioned three-point play from Wainwright cut the deficit to two points at 64-62, but Wilson immediately countered with a layup along the baseline.

“That’s the whole key. They got to stay mentally tough,” Epps said. “We’re in another person’s gym—they’re going to make a run. I don’t care whose gym you go into, they’re going to make a run in their gym. You got to be able to withstand it and then hit a basket at the end and that’s what we ended up doing.”

Said Salapata: “I thought both teams played pretty hard. Typical game between the two of us.”

BOX SCORE

Owings Mills 69, New Town 64

NT  10 24 10 20 ---- 64

OM 18 22 11 18 ---- 69

NT – J. Gerard 15, D. Goodwyn 14, K. Wainwright 11, C. Jacob 10, J. Clarke 5, A. Small 4, D. Jones 4, N. Quarles 2.

OM – A. Wilson 20, G. Mercer 14, A. Eber 7, C. Coit 7, C. Jenkins 7, R. Johnson 6, J. Johnson 5, D. Lloyd 3.