MORGANTOWN – On a night when it missed 19 free throws and made only two of 16 attempts from 3-point range, the University High boys’ basketball team came away with a 59-51 victory over St. John’s Catholic Prep (Md.) in Game Two of the Hope Gas holiday Classic at Morgantown High School on Friday night.
The Hawks trailed by nine points, 43-34, entering the fourth quarter, before outscoring the Vikings 25 to 8 in the final eight minutes of play to improve to 3-0 on the season.
UHS senior Glenn Brown scored a game-high 25 points on 10 of 17 shooting from the field, accounting for both of his team’s triples. Junior Kaleil Lewis added a double-double of 15 points and 14 rebounds.
Brown’s second three-pointer came with 3:45 left in the game and knotted the score at 45. Brown then turned around on the full-court press and stole the ball as he was falling out of bounds. However, rather than giving possession to SJCP, he quickly threw the ball off the opposing player in front of him. He followed that play with a contested lay-in to give the Hawks the lead for good after trailing the entire contest.
“Whenever you have nights like that where it isn’t anyone’s night, you’ve got to make up for that with effort and hustle,” UHS head coach Joe Schmidle said. “We turned up the defensive intensity, and I think the press bothered them. They got a little tired eventually. We just found a way tonight.”
UHS trailed the Vikings until Brown’s layup with three minutes to play, unable to complement defensive stops with made baskets on offense the entire game. Not to mention shooting 9 of 28 from the free-throw line.
Each time the Hawks scored, SJCP answered, but eventually Schmidle’s crew turned their takeaways into points and pulled ahead late in the fourth quarter.
“I mean, we just kept telling them eventually, something has to go our way offensively,” Schmidle said. “The shots just have to go in as long as we keep shooting. We kept turning them over and finally got a couple of shots to fall. Once Glenn hit that three to tie it up, we knew the energy had swung in our favor, and we closed well.”
The Hawks will have a quick turnaround, returning on Saturday at 12:45 p.m. to battle Shady Spring on the final day of the Hope Gas Holiday Classic.
BOX SCORE
University 59, St. John’s Catholic Prep 51
St John’s 17 13 13 8 – 51
University 12 8 14 25 – 59
St. John’s (1-3) – Fessuh 6 1-2 13 Kalaw 6 1-2 14 Butler 4 0-0 9 Yarborough 3 0-0 7 Lorenzo 2 1-1 5 Ballard 2 1-2 5
University (3-0) – Brown 10 3-7 25 Lewis 7 1-6 15 L. Byrer 4 2-8 10 Karpinski 2 1-5 5 J. Byrer 1 0-0 2 Weaver 0 2-2 2
3pt goals made: St John’s 3 (Kalaw 1 Yarborough 1 Butler 1); University 2 (Brown 2).
