No. 6 Gwynn Park stays perfect as they down No. 1 Douglass, 72-67

BRANDYWINE- When Michael Glick sits down to formulate a specialized weekly game-plan, he doesn’t cut any corners. The Gwynn Park head basketball coach knows that the luxury of having all the experience a coach could possibly dream of is right in front of him. And playing host to one of the county’s most white-knuckled rivalries, he knows what to expect.

The elbow to elbow, full capacity crowds; deafening cheers; intensity filled atmosphere with college coach’s abroad all sits well with Glick and his Yellow Jacket basketball team. On Tuesday night, every single one of those things occurred inside the sold out Gywnn Park gymnasium.

Though the game never ballooned to anything higher than a double-digit lead, No. 6 Gwynn Park led for all but half of the first quarter to down No. 1 Douglass, 72-67.

“It came down to our players resilience,” Glick said, who improves to a perfect 11-0 heading to the second half of the season. “We continued to score and not let up. What you saw our there was just terrific basketball between two county rivals.”

When Douglass had a golden opportunity to seize the moment, Gwynn Park rose to the occasion to prevent any chance of that happening. And a large part of those timely boosts came from senior’s Isaiah Miles, Kollin Mitchell and junior Justin Faison.

The three varsity veterans accounted for 53 of the Yellow Jackets’ 72 points and fueled a run-and-gun transition game that was firing on all cylinders for the entirety of 32 minutes.

“Our main focus was to pack in our zone so it would make things difficult for Douglass and fill the lanes in transition,” Miles said, a senior who nearly turned in a triple-double with 18 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists. “We just keep pounding on our craft everyday.”

Gywnn Park’s largest lead of the night came midway through the third quarter when it was pushed to nine.

Douglass then cut that down to one point with a chance at taking their first lead since the 4:12 mark in the opening quarter, but a costly turnover doomed that possibility. The Yellow Jackets high-motored transition game instantly made the Eagles pay, as Faison completed an old-fashioned three-point play to push their lead to 55-51 with four minutes remaining.

“I was just in a zone, man, and knew I had to get to the rim,” Faison said. The junior guard had a game high 22 points and dished out four dimes in the process. “In that atmosphere, we had to make sure we didn’t overreact on our marks. I thought tonight we did a great job of doing that.”

After that, Douglass was “strapped” down offensively due to the stiffling Gywnn Park zone defense. With 37 seconds left, another opportunity to cut it the game back down to a one possession game presented itself in the wake of Douglass, but like numerous of previous chances, it was the Yellow Jackets that emerged on the play-making end.

Mitchell picked up the misdirected pass to glide in the for another fast break layup that proved to be the nail in the coffin.

“When the game is on the line, you gotta strap down and show up,” Mitchell said, who pitched in with 13 points and five rebounds. “Any player dreams of making a play like that to sink their biggest rival. It fells great, but we want more.”

Donald Carey paced Douglass with 21 points. Meanwhile, the loss drops the Eagles to 8-1.

“We just take it day by day and happen to be 11 and 0,” Glick said, “Our team is very loose, that doesn’t get to us. We’re ready for the second half of the season.”

More highlights: Dalton Smith throws down this dunk to conclude the first half

 

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About Kyle McFadden 143 Articles
Kyle McFadden is a graduate from Linganore High's Class of 2014 and is a sports enthusiast. He got his start as a sports writer in January 2014 for LHS's student newspaper The Lance where he wrote 13 articles. McFadden then launched his own blog in October 2014 called The Beltway Dispatch covering collegiate, local high school, and professional sports. Formally known as The Beltway Dispatch, McFadden and Evan Engelhard merged each other's respective platforms in June 2015 to make what is now Maryland Sports Access. He brings plenty of sports knowledge to the helm of MSA as he has baseball, basketball and golf experience. McFadden covers a wide variety of sports in football, baseball, basketball, golf, hockey, lacrosse, soccer and specializes in the collegiate and high school level's. McFadden is volunteers his time at Damascus Road Community Church -- serving as a mentor to the youth, basketball coach at the varsity and junior varsity levels, and leads a small group of high school sophomores every Wednesday night. Although he has only been around journalism since January 2014, his work has appeared in Maryland newspapers such as The Daily Times (Delmarva Now), The Hometown Observer, Germantown Pulse, and regularly in the The Frederick News-Post. He's also won two Frederick News-Post Mike Powell Excellence in Journalism awards and has appeared on The Best of SNO, which showcases top student work of high school and college journalists. McFadden also holds positions at The Frederick News-Post as a freelance sports journalist, DMVelite as a high school basketball writer and analyst, MocoFootball.com as a Maryland high school football analyst, and as a staff writer for Maryland's Yahoo! Rivals. McFadden currently studies at Frederick Community College and plans to transfer to the University of Maryland in the fall of 2017 to work on a bachelor's degree in business and journalism as he has aspirations to be a columnist for ESPN.
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