Parkville Bounces Back to Defeat Patapsco 65-52

After losing Thursday night at home to Woodlawn, the Parkville Knights knew that if they wanted to keep alive their hopes of winning the Baltimore County title, they had to rebound in Saturday's afternoon matchup at Patapsco.

The Knights did just that. They came out of the gates flying, jumped out to a huge early lead, and never trailed in a 65-52 victory over the host Patriots. The win now sets up a huge showdown with the 3A/4A's only unbeaten team, Milford Mill, on Monday. If Parkville can win at Milford they will then need Milford to defeat Woodlawn on Wednesday for them to have a chance to play in next Friday's championship game.

It was a two-man show for Parkville (14-6) as James Milton rebounded from a tough night on Thursday with a dominating performance inside, while Skylar Collins took care of the game from the outside.

Milton led the way with 24 points and 15 rebounds, getting the majority of his points via dunks or rebounds off missed shots. Collins finished with a career-high 23 points, converting on five of eight shots from 3-point territory, while also coming up with three steals and a blocked shot.

Parkville coach Rod Norris was  happy when told about Collins' final numbers. "That's awesome that Skylar was able to get his career high," he said. "He actually started well the other night and then his teammates never found him. Tonight they did."

Collins was also happy about his performance. "It's all about confidence, and tonight I got my confidence back," he said.

The Knights came out blazing, connecting on eight of their first 10 shots, and led 11-0 after back-to-back dunks from Milton. A driving dunk by Jamal Williams down the baseline and another monster slam from Milton pushed the lead to 17-3, and then Collins nailed two straight 3-pointers for a 23-11 Parkville lead after one quarter of play.

A breakaway dunk from Milton gave Parkville its largest lead at 28-11.

Patapsco (14-6) did not go away easily, however, as the Patriots scored 15 of the next 17 points to cut the lead to four. Dorain Burke started the run with a 3-point play, and Rowland Hailey scored five straight to help finish the Patriots' surge.

A nice feed inside from Isaiah Tripp to Milton resulted in a layup, and at the break Parkville led 32-26.

The lead stayed between eight to 10 points in the third quarter. Milton had another emphatic putback dunk and Dennis Hughes added a slam of his own on a fast break opportunity in a 4-0 Parkville run.

A 3-point bucket from Hailey got Patapsco back within nine to end the third. That left Norris a little upset in the huddle, as he demanded for someone to take command in the final quarter.

And take control Milton and Collins did.

Milton opened the fourth with back-to-back dunks, both via the alley-oop version. The first came on a nice inside feed from Clive Edwards, while the second came on a fast break lob from Collins.

Collins then scored five straight, giving Parkville a 16-point lead, and the Knights converted on six of seven free throws down the stretch to win going away.

Parkville did not miss a shot from the field in the fourth and ended up shooting a blistering 53 percent for the game.

Norris still wasn't totally pleased with the effort. "Tonight was an improved effort, you learn from your losses sometimes, but we still had our issues," he said. "I had to bench kids at the end of the game for arguing with each other."

It was Patapsco's fifth straight loss, after getting off to a 14-1 start.

The Patriots had four players in double figures. Hailey led the way with 14 points, connecting on four 3-pointers on the evening. Devin James and Burke each added 11 points and Greg Spriggs provided 10 points of the bench. Davon Darby led the Patriots on the boards with eight rebounds.

Patapsco hosts Dundalk on Monday at 6:30 p.m. Parkville travels to Milford for the much anticipated matchup, also at 6:30.