Leon Williams capped a fine all-around effort with a game- winning layup at the buzzer last night to give host Cardinal Gibbons its fourth straight O. Ray Mullis Christmas Classic title by 63-61 over No. 13 St. Paul's.
St. Paul's (6-2) is the defending Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association B Conference champion; No. 19 Cardinal Gibbons plays in the combined Baltimore Catholic League and MIAA A Conference.
Williams, a 6-foot-6 junior transfer from Kenwood High, scored a team-high 21 points and had a game-high 12 rebounds in addition to blocking two shots, making three steals and limiting St. Paul's 6-foot-8 Holden Plack to only six field goals.
Plack still finished with a game-high 22 points, thanks to 10-for-13 free-throw shooting.
Gibbons (8-3) got the game-winner from Williams after Qwenton Gill's double-pump jumper in the paint with 12 seconds left tied the game at 61.
Gibbons immediately got the ball to Glenn Nelson, who was racing down to the other end. At the last second, Nelson started to pull up as if to shoot a jumper but instead passed to Williams, who was under the basket.
"Glenn passed it to me and I couldn't believe it because I thought he was going to take the shot," said Williams, who was the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. "I'm glad he trusted me to take the shot and it felt great. How else can I explain it?"
Something else hard to explain was Gibbons' collapse at the foul line in the final period, especially the last 3:30 when it made only three of 12 attempts.
"It was kind of unbelievable the way we kept missing our foul shots in the last period and still won," said Gibbons coach Bob Flynn. "It became contagious, but our defense won it for us and our kids wanted to keep the trophy here and maybe got a little nervous late in the game."
After a 24-24 first half in which neither team shot well, Gibbons twice had nine-point leads. But each time, St. Paul's made a run led by Scott Dozier (16 points) and Jason Caldwell.
"They had just enough to win and it didn't help that we had 20 turnovers and took a lot of bad shots," said St. Paul's coach Jack MacMullan, whose team was down by six with 1:01 left .
"And you can't do that against quality teams. But both teams played really hard and they had the final answer."
No. 12 Aberdeen 90, Arlington Baptist 59: The Eagles (6-1), led by Erin Henderson's 28 points, won the consolation. Arlington Baptist fell to 3-9.
Henderson was named to the All-Tournament team with Williams, Plack, Dozier, Gibbons' Ken Hasbrook and Arlington Baptist's Jason Barkley.