BOYS BASKETBALL
St. Frances too hot for Dons
Panthers continue run of postseason dominance; Mount St. Joseph ousted
Too much size. Too many scoring options. Too much playoff mojo.
The No. 3 St. Frances boys basketball team had all those things on its side in Friday’s Baltimore Catholic League semifinal game against Loyola Blakefield, reaching Sunday’s championship game with a 63-42 win over the Dons at Loyola Maryland’s Reitz Arena.
Jordan Toles (17 points), Jamal West (16 points, nine rebounds) and Rajeir Jones (16 points) took turns dominating stretches as the Panthers (35-5) were able to pull away in the third quarter.
St. Frances, which claimed the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference title Sunday, will look to make it back-to-back championship Sundays when they take on St. Maria Goretti with game time set for 1 p.m.
“They’re just sharing the ball and trusting each other and we’re coming together at the right time of year. We just have a talented team and we just have to stay together. Everybody is sacrificing to win championships,” said St. Frances coach Nick Myles.
Going into the game, the Panthers had steamrolled the competition in the postseason.
Including Wednesday’s 89-41 win over Mount Carmel in the quarterfinals, they had an average winning margin of 36 points in their four games.
Early on Friday, it looked like it may be the same when they jumped to a 14-4 advantage after Toles hit a 3-pointer with 2:37 left in the first quarter.
But the Dons (20-13) were able to pull within 20-19 on Brendan Fox’s short jumper with 1:53 left in the half.
Controlling the boards – Jason Murphy finished with 12 rebounds – helped the Panthers pull away in the second half. Jones hit a long jumper at the halftime buzzer to make it 27-20 and then scored eight points in the third quarter to push the advantage to 44-31. Another 3-pointer from Jones came on an early possession in the fourth quarter to help the Panthers further pull away.
“We’re just good at solving issues so anytime somebody needs to e cheered up or is having an off day, we make sure we’re engaged into any problems. So we’ve just become working together as a team,” West said.
Loyola Blakefield got 12 points from Cam Smith with Mitch Fischer and Conner Hepting each adding nine.
RJ Blakney scored a game-high 29 points – including 12 in the fourth quarter that including a thunderous follow dunk -- for Goretti, while James Bishop had 20 for St. Joe (27-8).
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