Nearly two months after it squandered an 11-point fourth quarter lead at home against McDonough High when suffering a one-point setback, the Thomas Stone High School boys basketball team attained a measure of revenge on Tuesday evening by defeating the Rams 57-41 to capture the 2A South Region final.
Stone (16-9) has endured its share of peaks and valleys over the course of the 2023-2024 regular season, but the Cougars appear to be peaking at the right time in the latter stages of the postseason. After upending fellow Southern Maryland Athletic Conference foe and longtime rival Westlake 58-44 last week, Stone continued its march to the Maryland state quarterfinals with a comfortable road victory at McDonough on Tuesday.
“The beginning of the game was like a boxing match where both fighters are just trying to feel each other out,” Stone coach Dale Lamberth said. “It was a low-scoring first quarter and we made some mistakes early. But once we got everybody on the right page offensively we played much better. Once we got the ball inside to Ty [Woodland] or Kaden [Jackson] we played much better.”
While Stone is accustomed to playing on the big stage in the postseason, boasting numerous region titles and three state championship game appearances, McDonough is among the rising programs in SMAC. In his three seasons as head coach, Kenneth Robinson has watched the Rams ascend from a perennial sub-.500 squad to earning the top seed in the 2A South Region playoffs.
“My first year here we only won a handful of games then my second year we had a winning record and we won a playoff game,” Robinson said. “This year we earned the top seed in the region and we won another playoff game. I lose six seniors but most of the guys are back next year, so there’s plenty of build on and the future looks bright for the program.”
In their previous meeting on Jan. 12, Stone led by 11 points in the fourth quarter but failed to secure the victory at home. On Tuesday the Cougars would actually never trail at any point, leading by double digits through much of the second quarter and well into the third when the Rams made a brief run to get within eight.
Stone owned a tepid 11-8 lead at the end of the first quarter then used a 9-0 run in the second quarter to forge a 22-11 advantage on a three-point field goal by Jonas Agyeman. The Cougars extended the lead before the intermission on three-pointers from Agyeman and Jeremiah Williams and owned a 30-16 advantage at the break.
Stone led by as many as 16 points on five occasions on Tuesday, including twice in the third quarter and eventually at the buzzer. But the Rams’ defense forced the Cougars into several turnovers and the hosts clawed their way back to within eight points twice before the Cougars ended the frame with a pair of free throws to take a 43-33 lead into the final eight minutes.
McDonough (16-7) had made things interesting briefly in the third quarter on three pointers from Tyrik Petway and Carlos Stepney, but they failed to score in the first four minutes of fourth quarter and the Cougars forged a commanding 47-33 lead on buckets from Agyeman and Jackson. Woodland also had three buckets inside over the last three minutes and the Cougars were never seriously threatened in the fourth quarter.
St. Charles will host Wootton on March 8 while Thomas Stone will travel to Largo for quarterfinal games.
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