Ziegler and Boyce Shine for Atoms on Senior Night

Annandale senior forward Karl Ziegler is known for his hard-nosed play. He gets rebounds and put-backs and isn’t afraid of a little contact.

But perhaps his nose, and the rest of his head, isn’t as tough as he.

With 1:42 to play in the Atoms’ game Friday night against Lake Braddock, Ziegler dove for a loose ball near midcourt, got stepped on by Ibrahim Wehelie, and next thing he knew, he was staring down at a pool of blood.

"I chipped my tooth,” Ziegler said after posting 35 points and lifting Annandale to a 75-65 win. “I just looked down and there was a bunch of blood and like 10 pieces of my tooth on the floor.”

The game wasn’t in hand at that point, as two baskets from Bob Freedman had cut the Atoms’ lead to 66-58, so Ziegler and the trainers had to literally stop the bleeding so he could get back in the game and figuratively stop it, too.

While the trainers were working on Ziegler, the Bruins scored three points, and by the time he got back in the game, it was 66-61 with 75 seconds to play. Once he got back in the game, Ziegler nailed six-straight free throws (he was 12-for-12 on the night) to give the Atoms a 70-63 lead with 19.9 seconds to go.

The game couldn’t end soon enough for Ziegler, who along with fellow senior D’Angelo Boyce accounted for 61 of Annandale’s 75 points on senior night, since he needed to get himself checked out more thoroughly.

He was to have a concussion evaluation and planned to see the dentist in the morning. He also had a cut above his left eye and a bloody nose.

“I’ll be wearing a mouthguard, for sure,” he said of Tuesday’s first-round district tournament game at home against West Potomac.

Boyce, who passed the 1,000-point plateau earlier this season, finished the game with 26 points. The lefty guard had a nice third quarter, scoring 10 points to help the Atoms maintain their five-point halftime lead heading into the fourth quarter. Ziegler had 14 points in the first half and went on to hit eight free throws in the second half, along with a 3-pointer to start the fourth quarter that gave the Atoms a 52-44 lead.

“If me and D’Angelo are scoring like that every night, it’s going to be really hard to beat us,” Ziegler said, but added a caveat. “We can’t win games with me and D’Angelo putting up 60 points out of 75.”

Coach Anthony Harper echoed that point and noted that senior forward Melvin Robinson had been hampered recently after suffering a lower-body injury when he landed hard after being undercut in the Atoms’ game against West Potomac.

“Once we get Melvin healthy and get him ready to go and practicing full speed, I think we’ll be okay,” Harper said.

Even though the district tournament seeding was already determined, with Lake Braddock having clinched second place after posting a better record over the next highest-seeded common opponent (South County), the game was emotional from the start.

“It’s a district game. It was senior night, so our guys didn’t want to lose,” Harper said. “We wanted to go into the playoffs on a good note."

Looking ahead to Tuesday’s game, the Atoms face an opponent they handled easily in the regular season, earning wins at home and on the road by more than 20 points. But that doesn’t mean Annandale will take the Wolverines lightly.

“They’re always going to give us a hard game, and we’ve played them three years out of four since I’ve been coaching (in the district tournament),” Harper said. “We’re down one.”

Harper said Annandale will have to contain West Potomac’s leading scorer, Daryl Copeland.

“They beat Woodson the other night,” Ziegler said. “They’re athletic and we’ve got to put them away early. Me and Melvin need to have a good game like we did last time down there.”