Atoms Earn State Tournament Berth With Regional Win

Annandale seniors Karl Ziegler, D’Angelo Boyce and Melvin Robinson have been on the outside looking in for three years. Now, in their final season, they finally punched their tickets to the state tournament with a 53-47 win Saturday over Langley in the semifinals of the Northern Region playoffs.

Robinson said he and his teammates would sit around and talk wistfully about what it must have been like for teams like Chantilly and T.C. Williams to make the state tournament the last few seasons.

“Since we were freshmen, we just kept telling ourselves we were going to get to states,” he said after scoring 11 points and grabbing 11 rebounds. “Now we’ve just got to go out there and take care of business.”

The Atoms will face T.C. Williams for the fourth time this season in the regional finals on Monday after the Titans downed Herndon 64-61.

“T.C. is just athletic and big,” said Boyce, who finished with 13 points and six rebounds after getting hot in the second half. “Playing them for the fourth time would be great because they beat us in the district championship and we can get revenge.”

But heading into the third quarter, the game’s outcome was still up in the air. The teams were tied, 35-35 for the final two minutes of the third quarter and the opening two minutes of the fourth. After Langley’s Austin Vasiliadis broke the tie with a driving shot in the lane, Robinson answered with an offensive rebound and put-back to tie things up.

The Atoms took the lead for good when Ziegler, who led Annandale with 15 points while hitting 5-of-6 free throws and grabbing 10 rebounds, completed a 3-point play to make it 40-37. Langley’s Daniel Dixon made a pair of free throws moments later to make it 40-39, but that’s as close as the game would get.

The Saxons had their share of open shots, from both inside and outside of the 3-point arc, and they picked a tough time to go cold.

David Adams’ 3-pointer with three minutes to go was the last shot Langley would make until the game was out of reach at 50-42 with 25 seconds to play.

“We didn’t score the basketball enough. It’s pretty simple, that’s really all it is,” said Saxons’ coach Travis Hess. “We got good looks and they didn’t go in. That’s what happens. That’s the game of basketball.”

Annandale had trouble early on adjusting to Langley’s spread-the-floor offense. Robinson, for one, said the style of play didn’t suit him well. But at halftime, Atoms coach Anthony Harper demanded more of a presence inside from him and Ziegler, and the pair responded.

While Ziegler and Robinson only accounted for 10 points in the second half, they made their presence felt in the final quarter, lifting the Atoms out of their offensive funk with persistence inside.

 “Melvin can be a double-figure rebound person, and he did that tonight, but he needs to do that every night, especially from here on out,” said Harper, whose Atoms are one of the few teams in the area to have beaten both T.C. Williams and Herndon this season. “A couple times in the first half, Karl was in the paint offensively for rebounds, but he just didn’t go after them. Effort and want is what we needed from them.”

That effort also showed up on the defensive glass, as Langley wasn’t able to get many second-chance shots in the fourth quarter.

Ziegler made his key 3-point play to give Annandale the lead, and Robinson made a nuisance of himself on the offensive glass, keeping possessions alive for players like Boyce and Reggie Scott to capitalize. Boyce scored four of his points in the final 70 seconds and he also found Monte McCarthy deep behind the Langley defense for a game-icing 3-point play with about 10 seconds to play.

The Atoms changed into sweats and headed out into the Robinson stands where they watched the Hornets and Titans battle it out for the right to play in the regional final. While Annandale was 1-2 against T.C. Williams this season, their signature win of the season came when they downed the Titans 72-64 at home on Jan. 26. Ziegler scored 26 points while little guard Sanar Shamdeen nailed a trio of 3-pointers. The key to that win was holding the Titans’ offensive threats Tyrell Sitton and T.J. Huggins in check.

“We know (them) pretty well,” Ziegler said of the Titans. “Fourth time, we’ll see what happens.”

Regardless of the outcome Monday, Annandale will play in the state tournament for perhaps the first time in school history, since the finalists from each region get into the playoffs. However, a win on Monday would mean not having to travel to play the Eastern Region’s top seed, a huge bonus.

“We’ve played against those teams and seen the competition down that way, we know we are capable of playing with them and beating them,” Harper said of the perennially strong teams from the Hampton and Virginia Beach area, whom the Atoms faced in a preseason training camp.