No. 20 Tuscarora Titans outlast No. 7 Linganore, hand Lancers first loss of year

By Kyle McFadden

LINGANORE – The light at the end of the tunnel appears vividly to one Rhashad Johnson. He knows that he’s not going to get there overnight and instead it will be a rigorous path filled with trials and tribulations. There are no moral victories, at least for Johnson, a captain of a team with a take no prisoners mentality. Anything short of second and misguided labels will leave him and his team a sour taste in their mouths and a chip on their shoulder.

Sure enough, No. 20 Tuscarora rolled into No. 7 Linganore with something to prove. They also despise rankings like the ones mentioned a sentence ago. Johnson and his Titans tuned out all the distractions Tuesday night to outlast one of the few teams left in the state that were undefeated and handed Linganore their first loss of the year, 54-49.

“We don’t like being number 20 in the MSA rankings,” Johnson said without hesitation. “It gave a chip on our shoulders and we feel like we proved something today.”

Though Winter Storm Jonas dumped just about three feet of snow across the Frederick County region, it wasn’t an obstacle that put Johnson away from basketball. Stating that it only gave him more time to work, since Tuesday being the first game played in exactly two weeks, he took advantage of the layoff by going to the gym and watching countless hours of film.

Little need to say, the 14 day break between games that could have hampered momentum was flipped into something beneficiary.

“It just gave me and my team more time to work,” said Johnson, who finished with a game-high of 15 points and eight assists. “And we needed that.”

Momentum teeter-tottered back and forth as 22 lead changes occurred over the 32-minute course of a game. In the second quarter, Tuscarora rattled off a 13-3 run over a six minute span to open up what seemed like a sizable 27-20 lead with just seconds remaining in the first half. That’s when Linganore point guard, Thomas Lang, drilled a pull-up three-ball from the left wing to bring the game to 27-23 at halftime.

For much of the game, it was Tuscarora that bullied Linganore in the paint; misdirecting layups and giving the slightest of nudge to make routine shots around the rim difficult. The Titan interior presence down low with the likes of Jaylen Washington, Isaiah Tillman and Kyle Lepkowski proved to be just enough.

“Guys are starting to buy into the system,” first year Titan head coach Darryl Whiten said. “We’re starting to trust each other and it’s showing out there.”

After controlling the entire second quarter and and the first four minutes of the third, Linganore would end the third frame on a 9-5 run that boosted scores from Carter Schmidt, Harry Rasmussen, Nicholas Lang and Jack Staub to give them a 38-36 lead going into the final eight minutes.

At the 3:45 mark in the fourth quarter, Linganore found themselves with a four point lead. But as Whiten talked about, with his team buying into the Titan system, the panic button was shoved aside when it was crunch time.

Washington hit a free throw line jumper with 3:20 to play to bring the game to two and then 18 seconds later, Johnson splashed home a dagger to give Tuscarora their first lead of the game since the three minute mark in the third frame, 47-46.

“He’s the oil in the engine,” Whiten said of Johnson. “If he goes, then we go.”

Linganore had numerous of chances to overcome off hard charging Tuscarora, but every opportunity that presented itself slipped away.

A Washington put-back gave the Titans the lead once more with 1:50 to go and then a Lepkowski offensive rebound (seven rebounds for the game) off a missed front-end of a 1-and-1 put salt in the wound. The Lancers would then miss the go-ahead layup with 56 seconds left and turned the ball over with 27.5 seconds left only being down, 51-49. One more opportunity was given, but Lang clanked the potential game-tying three-pointer off the iron.

When everything was all said and done, Johnson was celebrating with his teammates, but knew there was still work to be done knowing that the two teams will most likely cross paths down the road as they jockey for the 3A West crown.

“We’re going to see them again,” Johnson said. “I don’t want this to be a thing where we let the slack off us. We have to go out there just as hard as we went after them today. (Linganore) is a great team. We have to bring it if we want to beat them.”

Tuscarora improves to 12-2 on the year as they host Frederick tonight. Linganore (14-1), meanwhile, got back on track last night with a 76-51 win over Brunswick and will travel to Oakdale on Friday night.

“This is another big win for the program,” Whiten said. “It’s truly a blessing. We can’t rest and be satisfied with this win. We need to use it as a stepping stone for down the road.”

Washington turned in a 10 point and six rebound performance for Tuscarora. Lang led Linganore with 14 points and Staub added 13.

Feature image courtesy of The Frederick News-Post / Sam Yu.

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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.
Contact: Twitter

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