St. Paul's balanced scoring overcame a marvelous individual effort by St. Mary's Marcus Perry in an important Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association B Conference game yesterday in Brooklandville.

The host Crusaders pulled away late to defeat the visiting Saints, 54-46, in a matchup between the last two unbeaten teams in the conference.

Holden Plack led three St. Paul's players in double figures with 22 points as the No. 15 Crusaders (8-3), the defending champions, ran their B Conference record to 4-0.

Ray Brown chipped in 11 points, Jason Caldwell had 10 and Qwenton Gill added nine for the victors.

No. 19 St. Mary's (11-4) fell to 4-1 in the conference despite a game-high and career-high 28 points by Perry.

The Saints trailed by 46-44 with 3:41 left after a put-back by Jeff Postell, who had nine points, nine rebounds and two blocked shots.

But St. Mary's made only one field goal the rest of the way, failing to capitalize on St. Paul's shoddy 3-for-8 performance from the line in the final 1:28.

The Saints were a woeful 4-for-17 from the field in the last period, with Perry hitting three of the shots. A couple of clutch rebounds late by Scott Dozier, who scored only one point, but had a game-high 10 rebounds, kept the Saints from getting second shots.

"I just wanted to be me more aggressive out there," said Perry, whose last field goal made it 51-46 St. Paul's with 1:19 left.

"It was kind of a big game and I wanted to get my teammates involved, but once I got on a roll I wanted to emphasize scoring. We get them at our house the next time and we'll see what happens. I think we're just as good as them. We're the two best teams."

Six of the nine teams in the conference make the playoffs, and the higher seeds gain home-court advantage.

Because of a scheduling conflict at St. Mary's, the game was moved to St. Paul's on Sunday night.