On a night in which they were actually dubbed the visiting team despite playing in their own gymnasium, the North Point High School girls basketball team saw its season come to an end on Tuesday evening when the Eagles were upended by Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School 51-31 in one of two 4A state semifinals.
North Point (22-6) had enjoyed a perfect run through the Southern Maryland Athletic Conference slate which included a lopsided victory over Leonardtown in the SMAC championship game that it hosted. But on Tuesday evening North Point struggled on both ends of the floor and eventually Bethesda-Chevy Chase departed with a 51-31 victory to earn a spot in this weekend’s 4A state championship game at the University of Maryland in College Park.
North Point arrived riding an 11-game win streak that included a perfect run through February and three consecutive road playoff wins, the most recent being a gritty, 48-42 overtime victory at Western of Baltimore last Saturday. Neither team played well in the first half and the Eagles were plagued with turnovers, committing 18 of them in the opening 16 minutes while tallying just 14 points.
“We committed 18 turnovers in the first half and we were only down three points,” North Point coach Mike Serpone said. “All we had to do was take care of the basketball in the second half and we win. But we didn’t do that. We made a lot of uncharacteristic mistakes. We’re usually a good three-point shooting team (40 perfect) and tonight we only made one.”
Bethesda (25-2) had earned the designation as the top seed in the 4A state quarterfinals then advanced to the state semifinals expecting to play on one of the four “neutral’ courts the MPSSAA had predetermined. When the Barons discovered that their state semifinal game against North Point would actually be played at North Point, one of the four “neutral” sites the assignment did not sit well with school administrators and parents who openly voiced their discontent.
But on Tuesday evening inside a crowded North Point gym, the Barons were clearly well represented with a boisterous cheering section and would eventually prove worthy of being dubbed the top seed in the region. Through much of the first three quarters the two teams appeared on even terms with Bethesda leading 17-14 at the intermission and the Barons still owned a modest 24-21 lead midway through the third quarter when momentum shifted.
North Point used a 5-0 run early in the third quarter to draw even at 19 and the Barons owned a modest 24-20 lead following a three-point field goal from senior Anna Tercyak. After North Point senior Morgan Dow made one free throw, Bethesda countered with a pivotal and decisive 12-0 run over the next three minutes before the Eagles’ Karrington Boyd ended the drought with a conventional three-point play.
Bethesda-Chevy Chase took a comfortable 38-24 lead into the fourth quarter and within minutes the Barons had literally sealed the verdict. Tercyak opened the scoring with a pair of free throws, added another three-pointer and then a layup in transition to give the Barons a commanding 45-24 lead with 5:45 remaining. Bethesda pushed the margin to 51-26 later in the quarter before Dow belatedly answered with a three-pointer.
“We picked up a lot of fouls early, so I had to switch [our defense] from man to zone,” said Bethesda-Chevy Chase coach Ryan Ingalls, whose team will face Clarksburg High in the 4A state semifinals this weekend. “After we did that we started getting more points in transition. Our defense has always sparked our offense.”
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