Lusby, MD – The whole day was a strange one for the Chopticon Boys Basketball Team, as they only warmed up with six people on the court for half of the warm up time. When the rest of the team joined them on the court, they started to regain a normal routine.
When the game against Patuxent High started, Chopticon won the tip, and began to plan their attacks on the stingy Panthers defense. Both starting offenses really struggled through the first half of the first quarter. Both coaches had an entire bench lineup by four minutes left in the quarter. As a result, both teams’ scoring output was quite low in the quarter. It was tied at 5 for several minutes, until the last minute, when a Braves pass went astray, and was intercepted by Chris Pendleton of the Panthers who scored with a fast break layup. This pushed the game to 7-5 at the end of the first quarter.
The second quarter ran nearly the same way, except Patuxent began to find the bottom of the net more often. The wealth was distributed evenly this quarter for the Panthers, as no player scored more than 4 points during the period. Their defense held Chopticon to 6 second quarter points, with Brandon Lowe scoring 4 of them. When the halftime buzzer sounded, it was 19-11 Patuxent.
During halftime in the locker room, Patuxent coach Nick Wilson lit a fire under his team, as they came out in their mayhem style defense in a 2-2-1 full court press and really challenged the Braves offense. The Panthers in turn, scored 24 points in the 3rd quarter. Several times, they would steal the inbound pass after they scored a basket, and score another one rapidly. Darus Maddox led the way for the Panthers with 6 points in the quarter. The Panthers had grown their lead to 22 points, and led 43-21 heading into the fourth and final quarter.
In that quarter, Darus Maddox stole two Braves passes, and slammed them both into the opposite basket with some authority. On the second of those jams he leaped into the air, cocked the ball back in one hand, and slammed it home to complete the one handed tomahawk dunk. The Panthers full court press still bamboozled the Braves offense, which only could muster 8 points in the final quarter. The final buzzer sounded, and the Panthers were victorious with a score of 61-28.
The Panthers will head into this weekend with a 10-3 record, and drop Chopticon to 0-12 on the season.