When the St. Charles high School boys basketball team arrived at the spacious XFINITY Center on the campus of the University of Maryland in College Park on Friday for the 3A state championship game against Northeast of Anne Arundel County, the Spartans were looking to put the finishing touches on the most successful season in program history.
St. Charles (21-6) had won the Southern Maryland Athletic Conference Championship in convincing fashion over Chopticon then followed that up with a region title before punching its ticket to the state championship game by edging Stephen Decatur 63-61 in the semifinals. Another celebration seemed inevitable early in the fourth quarter at the finals on March 15.
“It was a game of runs and we had a great run in the third quarter then they had their run in the fourth quarter,” St. Charles coach Brett Campbell said. “They got the run in the end that counted. We had a few too many turnovers (16) and we gave up too many second chance points (24) and you can’t win championship games doing that.”
St. Charles trailed through most of the first half and 30-28 at the intermission, but the Spartans dominated the third quarter to forge a 50-38 advantage heading to the fourth. A conventional three-point play from Chris Brown had given the Spartans a 33-32 lead midway through the third quarter, their first since a similar point in the first quarter.
St. Charles ended the third quarter with a flourish as seniors Shamir Taylor (22 points) and Xavier Buchanan (game-high 31 points) and later Buchanan actually ended the third quarter with another three-pointer to lift the Spartans to a 50-38 lead. Despite trailing at halftime, St. Charles had actually outscored Northeast 19-15 in the second and then 22-8 in the third.
Buchanan and Taylor each had a bucket in the opening minute of the fourth quarter to stake St. Charles to a 54-40 lead with seven minutes remaining and the Spartans appeared on the verge of notching their first state title. Northeast, however, was not about to relent so readily and within 90 seconds the Eagles had trimmed the deficit to 54-48.
“When we fell behind early in the fourth quarter I told the guys we’ve faced adversity before and been able to overcome it,” Northeast coach Roger O’Dea said. “Earlier this season we played an undefeated Arundel team at their place and beat them double digits. I wasn’t worried. I’ve got Cam [Albury], Jadyss [Fifer] and Shamir [Johnson] and had complete trust in those guys.”
At one stretch during the fourth quarter, Albury (25 points) eight of the Eagles’ 10 points as Northeast trimmed the deficit to 61-60 with 2:35 remaining. Buchanan countered with a short jumper and Taylor added a layup and the Spartans led 65-60 with two minutes remaining and again appeared poised to garner their first state crown.
But Albury answered with a layup then Fifer followed with a conventional three-point play to tie the game at 65-all with 1:03 remaining. Buchanan made one of two free throws to give St. Charles a 66-65 lead with 34 seconds left, but Albury added another layup and then Ryan Stacy hit two free throws with 4.7 seconds left that was followed by desperation three-pointer from Taylor that fell well short.
“I thought we all played hard all the way to the end,” senior Tajir Webster said. “We just had too many turnovers and missed too many free throws. I thought the effort from our guys was there the whole game.”
Northeast (22-5) ended the first quarter on a 6-0 run over the last two minutes to forge a 15-9 lead and the Eagles scored the first three points of the second quarter and later extended the margin to 23-11 with 5:45 left in the first half. St. Charles countered with a pair of three-pointers from senior Shamir Taylor and the Spartans trimmed the deficit to 30-28 at the intermission courtesy of two late buckets from Buchanan.
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