South boys and girls prevail in Anne Arundel Senior All-Star Basketball Classic and enjoy final game with friends

It was just an all-star game. No championships could be won for these seniors, or even wins for the record books. That was all over. Practically everyone wore different jerseys, shaded white for the home South players and the various colors for the North players.

Southern coach Will Maynard, tasked with leading the South All-Star boys team in the 32nd annual Anne Arundel County Senior All-Star Basketball Classic, wanted his side to think about this differently.

He brought his boys into a huddle, a collection of St. Mary’s, Annapolis, Crofton, Broadneck, Severna Park, South River and Southern players. They were all boys who saw their seasons end with a loss; even Saints Aidan Harris and Ajani Lomax, who captured the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association B Conference title, turned around to drop a game to Landon in a tournament two days later.

Now, they looked set to lose the all-star game, too, trailing 62-52 in the third quarter to the North.

Maynard gave them a simple message: this is your last high school game. This is your last game in Anne Arundel County. Win it.

“South River had a great season, Broadneck won the region, St. Mary’s. Our guys had a winning season,” Maynard said. “We had a lot of guys with a winning mentality. They’ve been in that situation before and understood the game is never over.”

The South boys took their coach’s words to heart by rallying twice in the fourth quarter to beat North, 87-85, for their first victory in the event since 2015.

The boy playing Achilles to his Greek army and the game Most Valuable Player was none other than Harris, the MIAA B Conference Player of the Year and unquestioned scoring leader for the two-time champ St. Mary’s, who added 14 of his court-high 26 points in the fourth quarter alone to spear the comeback.

“I knew,” Maynard said, “from watching Aidan play over the years and watching him in practice on Sunday, that a game like this was good for him. He’s going to hit the glass. He’s physical. I knew he’d be successful.”

Alongside his abundant point total, just five shy of his final MIAA performance, Harris accounted for a team-leading eight rebounds and two blocks, as well as two steals and three assists. It was his 3-pointer that secured South’s lead for the final time and his block and forced turnover that prevented Meade’s Xavion Roberson and the North squad from overtaking them in the last minute.

Harris celebrated with his South teammates on a high school floor for the first time — except, of course, for Lomax, who the Saints senior felt grateful to play one last game with.

But to spend one more high school day with boys he grew up with, playing real basketball, was special to Harris.

“I always wanted to play in the county,” he said, “to prove what I’m worth.”

From the very start, Harris moved fluidly with South River’s Blake Burrows and Cash Herndon, both members of his AAU team DMV Stags. Herndon went up for an assist, and the 6-foot-7 Harris was there to tip it in. At the end, Harris, Herndon and Burrows, as well as Meade’s Roberson and Shawn Jones — who of course played for team North — all swapped jerseys to recognize their AAU teamwork and lasting friendship in their last game on a high school court.

Burrows would’ve given anything to have Harris play for South River these past four years than St. Mary’s, knowing his presence would’ve been a catalyzing force in the public school scene.

“If we had a season with Aidan, things might’ve been a little different,” Burrows said. “Not that we couldn’t have done it without him, but — 4A champs for sure.

“But he had a great career where he was, and I couldn’t have asked for a better teammate this summer.”

To celebrate a final game with Herndon, Seahawks star Trashaun Timmons and teammates who helped create a win was a healing moment for Burrows. To that point, his last high school game resulted in heartbreak, tears and a long, sorrowful locker room talk as South River surrendered the 4A East Region II championship to Broadneck — the last chance he and his longtime friends would ever have at bringing the Seahawks their first boys basketball region crown.

It was no short of a tragedy for South River then, Burrows said. But this game wasn’t just huge for him, he said. It’s good to showcase the county.

“Ending it and making memories with all the guys I played with since fifth, fourth grade, kindergarten, sometimes friends, sometimes rivals, and capping it off with a win?” Burrows said. “That was huge.”

Although Kyndall Crawford finished on the losing end of the game with the North team, the Indian Creek senior cherished it all. Like Harris, the North team’s MVP played a varsity career mostly sequestered to private school play, either because of pandemic restrictions in 2021 or simply the barriers of playing MIAA ball.

His senior-year coach Pete Corriero slated more public school games for the Eagles this season, giving Crawford a brush with his childhood friends again. But Tuesday night fully immersed him.

“We do exactly this stuff outside of this,” Crawford said. “In the summer, we go to the gym, go play, but now, here, we got to showcase this in front of people.”

Crawford played a momentum-shifting role in the third quarter, scoring half of his 10-point total to secure North’s lead. The Arcadia University commit also collected nine rebounds, two steals and two blocks.

His play exemplified a shift in the 2023 rendition of the 32-year-long all-star game. Previous high school senior showcases, particularly on the boys’ side, featured 100-point-plus scores because friends just ran to the basket and dunked on one another.

Crawford knew his particular generation would handle things differently.

“Everyone thought it was going to be a run and dunk, but since we’re boys, we wanted to go at each other,” Crawford said.

Harris was not the only game-changer in the fourth quarter. Arundel’s Eric Beavers and Devon Marshall combined for three 3-pointers to give South its first lead. Glen Burnie’s Jordan Canoles scored five points to close the gap, and then Roberson just exploded, unleashing eight straight points to push North ahead.

“I loved it,” Maynard said. “It’s good to be able to coach the South River kids, the Broadneck, the Arundel, cause I’ve prepared game plans against them. I hope college coaches were able to see something in some of these guys.

“And, it’s good to win.”

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South’s Arianna Jefferies, from Broadneck, shoots, in the third quarter. The South All-Star Girls defeated the North All-Star Girls, 66-64, in the 32nd annual Anne Arundel All-Star Basketball Classic at Crofton High School. (Paul W. Gillespie/Capital Gazette)

South girls rally to beat North, 66-64

Old Mill senior Nevaeh Brown felt the same about 90 minutes before tip-off.

She’d forgotten her Patriots jersey for the girls’ all-star game, dressing in a Crofton No. 3 instead. Ironic, considering she’d put on for Old Mill in a statistical and emotional way, garnering 13 points, six rebounds, four steals and three assists to be named the South team’s MVP.

Her efforts, alongside Patriots teammates and those from Annapolis, Broadneck, Crofton, Severna Park and Southern, spearheaded the South’s 66-64 come-from-behind win over the North, its second in a row since the last game in 2019.

The moral victory landed with Brown. Today’s Old Mill seniors haven’t beaten fierce rivals Glen Burnie once since the Gophers began their meteoric rise last year: not in the regular season, two region championship games or their county championship meeting.

“Obviously I wanted to get them in the regular season,” Brown said. “But it does feel good to end of my senior year at least beating our rival team a little bit. At least once.”

Amourie Porter, the North MVP and a star for the Class 4A state champion Gophers, recognized the stakes from the moment she saw Glen Burnie players had been placed on one all-star team, Old Mill and Severna Park — the team that played Glen Burnie in the county championship and state semifinal — the other.

Porter (11 points, seven rebounds, four blocks, three steals, three assists) looked at her new teammates and said: “Lets go.”

“But,” Porter said, grinning, “at the end of the day. It was fun.”

The South stared at a 12-3 deficit at the end of the first. In the spirit of the game, they decided to have a little fun with that.

Cassidy Wilkerson decided to replay the highlight of a different Glen Burnie game instead, hitting a 3-pointer to open the second quarter just as she did to spur the Gophers to their state title last Friday.

Hers was the appetizer to the quarter of threes. After Wilkerson, Crofton’s Cora Shafer and Brown strung eight points together to put the deficit at five, soon aided by Southern’s Kate Seymour and Severna Park’s Karli Kirchenheiter.

Despite the heat of the environment, players who typically only broke their game faces for screams hardly let smiles leave their faces, grinning during and after jumpers, blocks, even their own fouls.

As such, North’s lead shrunk by halftime, 28-22 — and shriveled to almost nothing shortly into the third quarter. Old Mill’s Amaya Douglas and Amani Watts (14 rebounds) twice narrowed the margin to one, most recently at 35-34.

Amourie Porter and North were having none of it. After putting away a layup-and-one, she turned around and smiled wide, arms up as Annapolis Area Christian School’s Gabby Barnes sunk her second 3. Porter then cut a no-look pass to a fellow No. 15, Chesapeake’s Natalie Forman, to establish the 45-42 third quarter lead.

Glen Burnie’s Lania Nick landed the last 3 of her high school career, which the Gophers had come to rely on so fiercely, as did Deamani Davis for Meade and North — twice — and Brown for South — twice.

“I enjoyed playing with these different girls, because [GB] doesn’t cut that much, but [others] do,” Porter said. “Seeing that, gives me something in the bag.”

Severn’s Madison Vernon flushed a layup in response, cementing a 10-4 run and a 64-59 lead that drove South to a timeout.

Seymour scored, then Watts and Severna Park’s Hanna Verreault. Brown spiced it with a 3-pointer, and the score would never change again.

For Annapolis coach Henry Meiklejohn, getting to coach the victorious South team was a gifted sight to a possible future. In his first year, the Panthers coach turned a winless 2022 team into one with 15 of them. But to handle a group of seasoned players and at the peak of their success showed him what level was still waiting for him.

“It helps. It gives us a goal to shoot for, where we need to get to,” Meiklejohn said, “because they set the bar.”