The Great Mills Hornets came to The Birdcage at Leonardtown High School with hopes of earning a top four seed in the 4-A basketball playoffs and the exciting game did not disappoint anyone. It had been rescheduled from the snow layoff, but both teams played strong, physical basketball.
Great Mills jumped out of the blocks and took an early eight point lead, 15-7. The Raiders fought back leading at the end of the first quarter 16-15 and took a 30-27 lead into halftime. After a halftime discussion between Coach Peck and his players Great Mills began to slowly chip away at the Raiders lead ending the third quarter down by one at 41- 40.
Michael Aikens led the Raiders in the paint with 14 points and the senior leadership of Leonardtown seemed to be taking charge in the fourth quarter and the game got extremely physical with a number of hard battles under the boards. The refs put their whistles away and let that style continue through the end of the game for both teams with start Hornet player Mykel Harris (14 points )spending the majority of the second half with four fouls. Mo Queen (14 points) hit a number of timely shots as the game came down to two foul shots with 4.4 seconds remaining on the regulation clock. Papa John’s Player of the Game Kammaron Barker nailed them both sending the game into overtime at 55-55. Great Mills(11-5) took charge of the overtime period hitting a number of tough shots and pulling away 71 – 62.
Leonardtown (8-7) was led by their Papa John’s Player of the Game Tyler Gladu finishing with tough defense and 12 points.
The Raiders face La Plata at home tonight , Feb. 17 and head across the bridge to Patuxent on Friday night. Great Mills heads to Chopticon on Friday night then, play Huntingtown at home next Monday and play at highly ranked Thomas Stone Tuesday Feb 23rd.
Baynet Radio broadcasted the exciting battle and will continue their local High School Basketball coverage with the Friday Night matchup between Leonardtown and Patuxent and the Monday game between Huntingtown and Great Mills, before starting our playoff coverage next weekend.
