Towson girls basketball rallies back from halftime deficit to beat Catonsville, 46-37
Towson trailed Catonsville at halftime by four points, but the host Generals sped up the pace with increased intensity and a trapping press that forced 15 second-half turnovers on the way to a 46-37 victory in a Class 3A North Region I semifinal.
Senior Lucia Brino scored 13 of her game-high 15 points in the second half to lead the Generals, who also got nine points and nine rebounds from Leila Franklin and nine points and three steals from Sydney Swift.
Catonsville was led by freshman guard Kaitlyn Welsh, who had 12 points and 13 rebounds. Emily Bartlett chipped in 11 and Jaynie Simpkins added seven.
“The seniors didn’t want it to be our last game so we really brought the energy into the second half,” Brino said. “When we were down at halftime I was really scared, but I knew our team, we were going to make it. I couldn’t imagine another ending.”
Brino scored six points and Sophia Plerzoch and Audri Adams made 3-pointers with Adams’ trey tying the game at 28 with 2:05 left in the third quarter. After Welsh and Franklin exchanged baskets, Brino canned two free throws in the final minute and the Generals never trailed again.
The defense was the difference in the fourth quarter when the Generals held the Comets to six points and forced six turnovers.
The Comets were playing without senior Ellie Altmann, who was out with a badly sprained ankle and was the key to breaking the press and helping with the ball handling all season.
“Being arguably our best player down and Ellie has played that position all year, no one’s ever played it other than her,” Catonsville coach Mike Mohler said. “We just forgot at a critical juncture what we do against that press.”
Towson coach Tim Gavin was reluctant to press earlier in the game.
“I just respect their coach so much,” he said. “I think he is so good X’s and O’s wise that when they came here they handled our press really well, so we didn’t do a lot of pressing in the first half. So I just wanted to speed the game up a little bit and I told our girls that even if we are going to give up a couple of buckets we are going to play our pace of basketball.”
The Generals fed off each other with the helter-skelter defense.
“The press is where we get our intensity from,” said Brino, who scored seven points in the final quarter and also led the Generals with four steals. “We like to create chaos off our press and that’s where we get a lot of steals.”
Catonsville’s defense was creating the chaos in the first quarter when they forced six turnovers and took a 10-9 lead. Welsh had four points, five rebounds and a blocked shot in the quarter and Bartlett had two steals.
Five Comets scored in the second quarter and Katie Dewitt’s basket with 33 seconds left in the half gave them a 21-17 lead at intermission. Dewitt also had four rebounds in the quarter.
“I thought the first half we probably played as well as we could play,” Mohler said.
Towson’s offense heated up in the second half against the Comets’ defense.
“We really wanted to draw fouls because they played a man-to-man and that’s where you can draw all the fouls from,” Brino said. “So our coach was telling us to keep taking it to the basket and if it’s not there, dish it to the big inside and she can score there.”
“We didn’t run anything differently offensively in the second half, just the fact that we moved more on defense and we sped up the game I think that had the girls moving more,” Gavin said.
They were also focused on keeping the ball out of the hands of point guard Welsh.
“[Welsh], that freshman is going to be a really good player and she was a girl we circled on our scouting report. We can’t let her beat us because she did a number on Overlea in the last game,” Gavin said.
Catonsville’s 51-14 win over Overlea in the first round of the playoffs was also Mohler’s 585th career victory. The Comets (14-8) finished the season winning 12 of their final 14 games with the only two losses coming against Towson (18-4).
“I’ve said this so many times this has been the most fun coaching a group of kids in a long, long time,” Mohler said. “Outside of coaching my daughter [Meghann] and the state championship runs, this has been the most pleasurable. They are just wonderful, wonderful kids. They gave us everything they could possibly give.”
Towson (18-4) wore them down in the end and they advance to play at Dulaney on Wednesday in the regional finals. Dulaney defeated Milford Mill, 55-50.
“When we start playing fast like that it just makes teams uncomfortable and we like to play that style of basketball and it just fits us better,” Gavin said.
Towson — 9 8 15 14 — 46
Catonsville — 10 11 10 6 — 37
T: Lucia Brino 15, Leila Franklin 9, Sydney Swift 9, Audri Adams 6, Sophie Plezkoch 3, Sophia Williams 2, Madden SySantos 2.
C: Kaitlyn Welsh 12, Emily Bartlett 11, Jaynie Simpkins 7, Katie Dewitt 5, Gianna Barracato 1, Aryanna Ewbanks 1.