Rockets Remain Winless After Close Loss

It was a battle of the winless on Wednesday night at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring as the Blazers hosted the Richard Montgomery Rockets.

"I told [my players] in pregame that we were 0-3, they were 0-3, and someone is winning a game tonight," Blair Coach Mark Destefano said.

He was certainly correct. Thanks to just enough execution and a little bit of luck, it was the Blazers that put their first check in the win column with a 40-34 victory.

Leading after the first quarter 10-9, the Blazers made a second-quarter run led by six points from point guard Tucker Canary to take a 25-15 halftime lead.

"We did great things in the first half moving the ball and getting it up the floor against their pressure," Destefano said. "You put up 25 points [in the first half] and you kind of figure you're going to get 50-something points."

As it turned out, it wasn't that simple. The Rockets tightened their full-court press in the second half, forcing 16 turnovers in the third and fourth quarters alone. As Blair struggled to duplicate their first-half performance, scoring just 6 points in the third quarter, Richard Montgomery slowly chipped away at the Blazer lead.

An 11-5 run by the Rockets over the first seven minutes of the fourth quarter made the score 36-34 in favor of Blair, the closest it had been since the beginning of the second quarter. A made free throw by Blazer Delante Gaskin gave Blair a three-point lead with 36.3 seconds to play.

Down 37-34 and with the ability to potentially tie the game on their last possession, Richard Montgomery turned the ball over behind sloppy handling by point guard Paul Sewell. Three free throws later, Blair sealed the six-point victory.

Sewell's giveaway was the Rockets' 24th of the game.

"In the last 50 seconds, we did just enough to win the game, and that was important,"  said Destefano, adding that he was proud of his team's defense. "We're pretty good with defensive assignments, but we have to get better on the offensive end. We have to learn to play better team offense and until we can really do that, we're going to struggle. We can't rely on holding teams to 34 points a game."

Canary led all scorers in the game with 15 points. Gaskin added nine for Blair and Lucas Babinec came off the bench for eight. Destefano however, was most complimentary of senior forward Josh Kickenson, whose intangibles led the way for Blair.

"Josh was great tonight. There's a bigger contribution he can make than just shooting the ball, and he did that tonight. He rebounded, he hustled, played solid defense, had a blocked shot and a couple deflections," Destefano said.

The Rockets were led by Sewell and Eric Morgan, who both scored eight points. Hal Diane added seven.

Both teams play again on Dec. 17. The Blazers will host Einstein and Richard Montgomery will travel to Wheaton.

To keep up with local sports, visit www.twitter.com/patchsportsmd. 

SCORING SUMMARY

BLAIR BOX SCORE

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RICHARD MONTGOMERY BOX SCORE

RICHARD MONTGOMERY TEAM TOTALS

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