For days, Phil Popielski had been saying how delighted he was to have Linganore in the Meade Girls Tournament.
He said it Thursday after Linganore routed Northern-Calvert by 28 points in the first round.
He said it again before Popielski's Meade team faced Linganore for the championship yesterday.
He even said it after Linganore (7-1) romped, 58-17. In the consolation game, Northern-Calvert (3-4) beat 2-5 Oakland Mills, 64-43.
"Linganore is everything I want us to be in a year or two," said first-year coach Popielski, whose Mustangs are 3-4.
Linganore has continuity and success; coach Brian Matthews is in his ninth season with a record of 161-32.
It has players who attend camps and play in summer leagues.
Cara Consuegra, the Meade Tournament MVP with 37 points, was on an AAU 14-and-under team that was No. 7 in the country.
"Our high school gym is open all summer," Matthews said, noting that Linganore has sent 20 girls on to college basketball during his tenure. There's a weight room and a summer league. These kids work hard for their success."
That is what Popielski wants for Meade.
He already has invited Linganore back to see how the Mustangs will measure up a year later.
Popielski was hardly pleased with Meade's play yesterday, however, after the first-round win over Oakland Mills.
"We took a giant step backward," Popielski said. "We couldn't handle the pressure of facing a ranked team that has beaten the likes of Mount Hebron."
Led by Consuegra, who scored 14 points, Linganore jumped to a 30-11 halftime lead and outscored Meade in the second half by 22.
Shalisa Johnson paced the Mustangs with eight.
"We had at least 32 turnovers," Popielski said. "Yes, Linganore has better players, but what bothered me was that we didn't get near the effort we did against Oakland Mills.
"We're trying to instill a new attitude. You want to win in your own gym -- hustle, dive for loose balls, don't let the other team push you around. Linganore was up by 40 and still diving for loose balls."
Not that it would have made much difference, but Meade was minus starter Tamara Washington, who, with Popielski's blessing, went to a family outing in North Carolina after the first round.
Washington was named to the all-tournament team with teammate Amy Cronin, Northern's Sherry DePhillip, Oakland Mills' Lauren McHargue and Linganore's Mimi Ritter and Consuegra.
Oakland Mills again was without starters Ginny Dye, Terri Hayman and Ny Ford (soccer tournament in Miami) and key reserve Sommers Richards (flu).
That hardly soothed the sting of two poundings for coach Teresa Waters, although she did like McHargue's 23 points and the way Jessica Riley "stepped up" in the absence of the four players.
"The one good thing was that all our girls got playing time," Waters said.