Forest Park's girls basketball team could not get past a tall roadblock in its drive to finish the season undefeated with its first state championship — Southern center Lauren Francillon.
The 6-foot-2 junior scored 32 points and had 17 rebounds as the defending state champions from Garrett County defeated Forest Park, 66-38, in a Class 1A girls semifinal Wednesday at Towson's SECU Arena.
Despite the loss, the Foresters enjoyed the best season in school history, finishing 23-1 with their first regional championship and the Baltimore City Division III title.
After winning just six games last season, coach Jermaine Dunn had no expectations for such a strong showing and called it a "dream season.
"Forest Park has never had that success before and these kids, most of them never played together before, where we played against teams that played AAU ball together and went to middle school together. This team we played against today, you could tell they were seasoned and this was not their first go-around. We had no answer for their size."
The game opened with a 10-0 Southern run, but once Tiffani Rice made the Foresters' first field goal, a 3-pointer with 2:39 left in the first quarter, her team played the Rams nearly evenly until the second half.
"I think people got nervous," said Rice, adding that some players were nervous about how tall the Rams were.
In a back-and-forth second quarter, Makelle Randolph hit a 3-pointer with 2:08 remaining to pull the Foresters back to within 10. After Kamrin Weimer made two free throws for Southern, Jasmine Polston fed Randolph to stay within 10. Francillon, however, banked in a buzzer-beater to give the Rams a 32-20 halftime lead.
The game got away from the Foresters in the third quarter when the Rams (21-4) scored the first 12 points — seven from Francillon — to run their lead to 44-20.
The Rams will play Forestville — which beat Pocomoke, 63-47, in Wednesday's other semifinal — for the championship Saturday at 6 p.m. at SECU Arena. Southern used its height advantage to score 21 second-chance points and turned 20 Forester turnovers into 27 points.
Randolph, a sophomore guard, led the Foresters with 13 points and two assists while Rice, also a sophomore, had 11 points and three assists.
"Now that they know what it's like," Dunn said of his five non-seniors, "hopefully they'll pick themselves up and work harder and get ready for next year, because I don't want this to be a one-time thing."