For four minutes early in Wednesday night's No. 1 vs. No. 2 girls basketball showdown, second-ranked Roland Park couldn't do anything wrong.
The Reds hit seven straight shots, won every defensive rebound and set the tone for a 55-40 upset of No. 1 McDonogh, the defending Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference champion.
After the Eagles took a 3-0 lead, the host Reds scored 15 straight points by grabbing rebounds and running the floor. Senior Michala Clay scored three times and assisted Jaia Alexander's 3-pointer to cap the run with 2:02 left in the quarter. Five of their seven baskets were assisted, including three by Jeydah Johnson.
"If we rebound the basketball we can do some really good things," Reds coach Scott Buckley said. "One thing that's really helping us rebounding is we don't rely on our post people to rebound. Our guards are very good rebounders."
The Reds (7-1, 3-0 A Conference) outrebounded McDonogh, 40-33. Four players had six or more with Alexander and Johnson grabbing nine each.
In the score book, the Reds were even more balanced with four players in double figures — Clay with 14, Lindsey Edwards with 12 and Alexander and Ryan Holder with 10 each. Johnson scored nine. Johnson and Holder had four assists each.
After the initial spurt, Roland Park kept rolling in the second quarter, pushing their lead as high as 34-10 when Johnson hit a 3-pointer with 1:25 to go to the half.
The Eagles (5-1, 3-1) finally seized the momentum late in the third quarter with a 9-0 spurt that cut the lead to 41-28 on Kolbi Green's driving layup with 7:27 left in the game. McDonogh's pressure gave the Reds trouble at times, but they went back to their strength when Edwards grabbed a defensive rebound and Holder fed Clay for a layup to end the Eagles' run.
"We knew they were going to pressure," Edwards said. "It was just a matter of keeping our composure, taking care of the ball, keeping our lead."
The Eagles struggled with their offense, hitting just 26 percent of their shots from the floor and just 5 of 13 free throws. Green and Dajah Logan led McDonogh with eight points each.
"This whole season we've had a tendency to resort back to our individual talents as opposed to our team orientation that has helped us to success in the past," Eagles coach Brad Rees said, "and I thought that's what happened tonight. We got knocked back on our heels a little bit and kind of went back to some [bad] habits and it just kind of spiraled."
Roland Park hadn't beaten McDonogh in almost two years, falling three straight times including last year's championship game, but this game wasn't about revenge for the Reds.
"Any win is good," Edwards said, "but our main thing was to defend our home court. We want to win all these home games and that's what we came to do. We played hard, we played team basketball and we got a good win."
The Eagles will get another shot at the Reds on Feb. 2 at McDonogh.