Old Mill forward Austin Johnson says there's nothing better than a victory to bring a disgruntled team together.

And the visiting Patriots' 58-56 win over fourth-seeded Broadneck (14-9) in last night's Class 4A Region IV boys basketball quarterfinal did the trick. It alsoearned the 14-9 Patriots a place in Thursday's semifinal matchup against top-seeded Annapolis.

The fifth-seed Patriots had experienced unrest recently, such as in the regular-season ending loss to Chesapeake in which Coach Paul Bunting benched four starters, and another -- guard Erik Sheppard -- missed the game due to academic ineligibility.

But Sheppard (a team-high 19 points) returned to nail a trio of three-pointers and Johnson (10 points, seven boards), one of the four disciplined players, took a pass from Ravon Austin (nine points) and nailed the game-winning bucket with 35 seconds left.

"As the team captain, I had to tell them what's in the past is in the past," said Johnson. "We had to cometogether to win."

The Patriots got scoring from Terrel Eldridge (nine points), Henry Wilkerson (six) and Steve Smith (four), while theBruins were led by David Britton (22 points, 11 boards) and Matt Weimer (15 points).