BOYS BASKETBALL
Price, Clippers assertive in victory
Senior scores 33 points as Baltimore City champions breeze to 20th victory
The No. 1 Patterson boys basketball team won the Baltimore City championship on Thursday and impressively looked like a champion in Saturday’s makeup game at rival Lake Clifton.
The Clippers were assertive from the start, taking whatever the No. 7 Lakers gave them on offense while buckling down on defense and controlling the boards.
Senior Marvin Price led four Clippers in double figures – scoring 33 points and adding 10 rebounds – in a comfortable 89-63 win over the Lakers.
Patterson, which also got 15 points and 11 rebounds from senior Jalen Wilis, finished the regular season with a 20-3 mark. The Clippers next take aim at the Class 2A North region with seedings coming out Tuesday.
They left Lake Clifton’s gym feeling pretty good about themselves with the strong performance against a rival and quality opponent. Gerard Mungo added 10 and Zach Blackwell finished with 12 in the win.
“We just wanted to finish the season out strong and go undefeated in the city so we came ready to play, especially on defensive end and rebounding,” Price said.
The Clippers were aggressive at both ends, turning turnovers into points and attacking the basket early to take control. When Willis hounded a Laker into a turnover and then converted it into an easy lay-in at the other end, they had their first double digit advantage at 20-10 with 1:49 to play in the first quarter.
In Thursday’s 60-52 win over Edmondson for the city title, Price struggled from the outside for most of the game before hitting a pivotal 3-pointer in the closing minutes. On Saturday, after the Lakers went from man defense to a zone, his aim from the outside was spot on as he took over the rest of the first half.
He his first 3-pointer in the final minute of the first quarter to push the Clippers’ lead to 27-13 and then hit three more 3s in the second quarter to finish with 20 in the half and give the Clippers a 48-34 halftime advantage.
“I was just taking what they were giving me – trying not to make it hard and just play. It definitely feels good and we just want to try to keep it going,” he said.
After the Clippers pushed the lead to 18 early in the third quarter, the Lakers got three straight baskets from Michael Gray (24 points) to cut the lead to 56-44 midway through, but the Clippers went on to pull away.
The win could play a role in the Class 2A North region playoffs. Should Patterson meet up with Edmondson in a rematch of the title game, it will be on the Clippers’ home court.
“I was really impressed with our overall effort – Jalen Willis, Zach Blackwell, Marvin Price, Gerard Mungo — overall probably one of our best efforts all year,” Patterson coach Hrry Martin said.
“I wasn’t really happy with Thursday’s performance – it was a win – but I thought two fouls early on Blackwell and TJ [Thomas] at Morgan the other night hurt our aggressiveness. So tonight, we got more chances to be aggressive and we were able to wear them down.”
Lake Clifton, which got 22 points from senior Armon Harried, has one regular season game left to make up at Ben Franklin at 3:45 p.m. Monday before moving on to the Class 1A North region playoffs. Last year, the Lakers won the Class 2A state crown.
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