St. Charles boys make school history in win over North Point
St. Charles boys beat North Point for first time
The St. Charles boys basketball team start- ed 2017 by turning over a new leaf as it went to North Point and defeated the Eagles, 74-69, for the first time in school history in Wednesday night’s Southern Maryland Athletic Conference Potomac Division contest.
With the victory, the Spartans (6-2, 1-0 SMAC Potomac) has arrived as not only one of the sur- prise teams in Charles County, but also in the conference.
“Five years I was here [as the North Point boys assistant coach] and since that time they’ve only lost one home con- ference game,” said St. Charles head coach Brett Campbell, referring to the Eagles. “North Point has been the favorite in our conference for some time and for us to come in here and beat them gives up some motivation. Our guys have been working, so it feels good get some recognition.”
Senior guard Shiloh Beale sparked St. Charles’ signature win with 28 points, scoring 18 in the second half, including 12 in the fourth quarter.
Beale is averaging a team-best 19.3 points a game thus far and has been the catalyst to the Spartans unit on offense and defense.
“My teammates just put me in a good position to score and I just wanted to help my team in any way that I could,” said Beale, who hit three pointers and made 8 for 11 (73 percent) from the freethrow line. “We’ve been playing good defense and we are getting better every game.”
In what was a back-andforth contest, St. Charles, which had 28 points in the fourth, led 64-57 with 2 minutes 2 seconds remaining and later was up 68-63 with 32 seconds left.
North Point later cut the Spartans’ lead to 6866 with 17 ticks left, but St. Charles went back on top by four on pair of free throws by Marshawn Hall with 15.6 seconds left.
Dealt with foul trouble for most of the game, senior guard Jalen Gibbs, who finished with a game-high 29 points, nailed a three-pointer with 10 seconds remaining.
Hall was fouled again on the ensuing posses- sion and made two more free throws to put the Spartans up 72-69 with 5 seconds left.
North Point had one final chance to tie the game, but Gibbs, who did not play the entire third quarter, was called for a carry before he reached half-court.
Hall was then fouled and knocked down two more free throws to seal the victor y for St. Charles.
North Point led by as many eight points in the second quarter, but Gibbs had to sit on the bench after he was called for his fourth foul with 3:08 left in the first half after being called for an offensive foul and then a technical foul.
From there, the Spar- tans used their aggres- sive man-to-man defense and timely shooting to narrow the gap and ended the second on a 13-4 run to take a 31-30 half- time lead on a basket by Beale as time expired.
St. Charles, which took a 17-13 lead in the first quarter, also had scoring contributions from Sean Patterson with 12 points, while Hall and Anthony Bowman finished with 10 points each.
The Spartans, who are scheduled to be at Leonardtown at 6:30 tonight for a nondivision contest, shot 17 of 21 (81 percent) from the free-throw line, while North Point was 24 of 40 (60 percent).
“North Point did a real good job of getting to the basket and shot a lot more free throws than we did,” Campbell said. “We had a couple guys take some charges and we were able to make some key stops on defense. This was a huge early season win for us.”
North Point sophomore guard Malik Lawrence was the only other player in double figures besides Gibbs with 15 points on the night.
The Eagles (3-6, 0-1) are scheduled to travel to Lackey (8-1, 1-0) for a 6:30 contest tonight.
“Coach Campbell had his guys ready and they played hard,” Nor th Point head coach Jimmy Ball said. “We were up eight at one point in the second [quarter], but they had a big run to end the quarter. We just have to figure out our way out of this slump and keep working. It is a long season.”