Severn repeats as MIAA B basketball champions

by Nelson Coffin

For those who wonder if being the only league rival to defeat Severn School during the regular season would help St. Paul’s School beat the Admirals in the B Conference basketball championship, the answer was crystal clear after the battle at Chesapeake Employees Insurance Arena at UMBC on Saturday afternoon.

It didn’t.

Shooting woes, especially 15 errant free throws, a tight Severn defense and 6-foot-4 senior small forward Jacob Randall's heroics doomed the Crusaders’ bid to derail Severn’s second consecutive title run. 

The Admirals (20-5, 14-1 conference) pulled away in the second half to post a 51-42 victory — the same score they produced to eliminate archival St. Mary’s in the semifinal round — and join Gerstell Academy, the Saints and St. Paul’s as the only teams to earn back-to-back B Conference crowns.

McDonogh is the lone league program to own a three-peat, a feat the Eagles accomplished from 1998-2000, before moving to the A Conference.

On Saturday, St. Paul’s (20-10, 13-3) had a tough time negotiating Severn’s sticky man-to-man defense, especially in half-court sets.

“I think we just honed in our defensive pressure,” Severn coach Mike Glasby said after holding St. Paul’s to its lowest output of the season. “We really feel like our calling card is making people feel uncomfortable. Just a man-to-man defense. We have a couple of different principles in there with some switching, and different things like that — take away gaps, take away driving lanes. Towards the end, (St. Paul’s) did a good job of getting to the rim.”

St. Paul’s coach Phil Hahn said that a combination of poor free-throw shooting and Severn’s ‘D’ were too difficult to overcome in a test of divisional top seeds.

“We did what we wanted to do,” Hahn said. “We just couldn’t finish. We knew what they were going to do, They’re hard to score against and Jacob Randall came back and had a great game. We executed well defensively. We just couldn’t put the ball in the basket.”

Glasby added that he learned from the first encounter with the Crusaders, “that we had a tough team” when the Admirals fell, 53-52, but kept it close despite Randall missing the game with an injury.

“Even though we lost that game, I thought we were together,” he said. “And I thought we did a great job of communicating. They were just one point better than us in that game."

In the title game, the Crusaders took an  8-7 advantage heading into the second quarter after both teams struggled to score in the opening period. St. Paul’s senior small forward Bryce Matthews nailed a three from the corner before junior teammate Andrew Cooper’s reverse put his team on top.

That trend continued early in the following period when Cooper’s bank shot gave St. Paul’s its biggest lead, at 12-7.

Severn retaliated with a 10-4 run to close out the first half, with Randall (game-high 16 points) and junior guard Sean Harvey leading the way with five points each.

The Admirals kept the pressure on in the third period, outscoring the Crusaders, 18-7, with Randall and senior power forward Ben Hilburn taking over on the boards and combining for 13 points to help Severn build a 35-23 cushion with only one quarter remaining.

St. Paul’s was able to slice the lead to eight twice, and closed to within 49-42 on Cooper’s put-back with 23 seconds left in regulation before sophomore guard DJ Lee’s free throws provided the Admirals’ final margin.

Lee’s three-pointer and fast break finish were also instrumental in the final period for the champs.

In the end, Randall, Harvey and the Admirals had the wherewithal to prevail with defense first and foremost.

“I really found myself on defense,” Randall said. “I wanted to get a lot of stops. But as a team, collectively, our goal was to stop No. 1 (sophomore small forward Cahron Wheeler, team-best 11 points) and I think Ben (Hilburn) did a really good job on him today. It was a team effort, really, to get a bunch of stops.”

Harvey said the slow start on the offensive end did not deter the Admirals from emerging with another title.

“We were cold,” he said. “But we never gave up.”