Towson Catholic repeated as champion by upsetting top-ranked and top-seeded Mount St. Joseph, 54-44, in the 13th Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference tournament final yesterday at the Towson Center.
The third-seeded and eighth-ranked Owls (21-11) got big games from Brandon Greene, Vinny Breckenridge and Larry Basfield, who played on a bad ankle, and the Owls made eight consecutive free throws in the final 46 seconds to put away the Gaels (28-3).
"This is outstanding," Owls coach Josh Pratt said. "We believed we could win. All we had to do was play our best basketball at the end of the year. Our seniors stepped up tremendously. To be the No. 1 team in the championship is tremendous. It doesn't stop here. Round 2 is next week in the Catholic League."
The BCL tournament is next Monday through Wednesday at Loyola College.
Greene had 13 points, 12 rebounds and three blocked shots, while two other seniors, Breckenridge and Basfield, combined for 21 points. Breckenridge had a game-high 15 points in a game that stayed close until the Owls pulled away from the foul line in the final period.
"It feels great because everybody doubted us all year," Greene said of the team's graduation loss of two All-Metro players, including Player of the Year Malcolm Delaney (Virginia Tech) and Donte Greene (Syracuse), and then junior starting guard Leshon Edwards during the season. Edwards dropped out of Towson Catholic for personal reasons.
Henry Sims led the Gaels with 14 points, 10 rebounds and two blocks.
"The difference was their intensity and playing hard by a really good group of seniors and wanting it more than we did," Mount St. Joseph coach Pat Clatchey said.
pat.omalley@baltsun.com