Annandale Advances to Patriot District Semifinals with 73-58 Win Over West Potomac

There was no need to hide it. If there was any team in the Patriot District tournament that Annandale wanted to play in the quarterfinal round it was perhaps West Potomac.

The Atoms beat the Wolverines by at least 20 points in their two regular season games and Annandale utilized its distinguishable height advantage across the board again, with a 73-58 win over the Wolverines to advance to Thursday’s semifinals against Lake Braddock.

“What we wanted to do is control the glass,” Annandale coach Anthony Harper said. “The games that we’ve won this year, we’ve won the war on the glass.”

Annandale (15-6) demonstrated its height advantage over West Potomac (12-10) throughout the game with opportunistic rebounding by collecting on second-chance layups. The Atoms were led by senior Karl Ziegler, who scored 25 points. Monte McCarty and Sanar Shamdeen both came off the bench to score 13 and 11 points, respectively. After leading 38-35 midway through the third quarter, Annandale went on a 22-6 run all the way through the middle of the fourth quarter.

The Atoms started the game shooting cold on the perimeter took their first lead of the game with 6:55 in the first quarter when sophomore backup shooting guard Shamdeen made one of his three 3-pointers in the game to take a 16-14 lead.

Throughout the game, Annandale was bolstered by a bench that outshined West Potomac’s backups.

“Greg Nielsen, Monte McCarthy and Sanar all stepped up to give us positive minutes,” Harper said. “Sanar, we try to tell him [to shoot] within the flow of the offense. When he first got in, he wanted to shot the three as soon as he got it. As long as it’s in the flow of the offense, he’s knocking it down.”

The Atoms orchestrated tight defense throughout the game against a dynamic West Potomac team that features a predominantly guard-oriented offense. Annandale senior guard D’Angelo Boyce held strong defensively and allowed West Potomac’s backcourt of Jalen Dawson and Daryl Copeland to a total of 27 points.

Annandale led 49-41 entering the final quarter and ran away early in the fourth quarter by going on an 11-0 run. After trailing 60-41 with less than five minutes remaining in the game, West Potomac made a brief rally when senior Jalen Dawson converted on a 3-point play to cut the Atoms’ lead to 60-48 with 3:55 left in the game, but the Atoms’ lead was too large to make a comeback. With 2:33 remaining in the game, Ziegler drove hard to the basket and converted on a 3-point play to help maintain Annandale’s lead.

The Atoms advance to the semifinals of the Patriot District tournament to play Lake Braddock on Thursday. Both semifinal games will be played at Lake Braddock, with the Bruins hosting the Atoms in the second game of the night that’s slated for a tentative 8 p.m. tip-off. The teams split their series in the regular season, and Annandale recently beat Lake Braddock 75-65 last Friday.

Facing a team twice in less than a week is a task that both teams will have to figure out.

“It’s very difficult, but we got to come out and do the same things we did tonight and Friday night and what we’ve been doing the last three or four games,” Harper said.

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