Cougars headed back to Comcast
As the on-court celebration slowly died down following Thomas Stone’s 87-68 win over the visiting Potomac Wolverines in the 3A South final on Saturday night, Cougars’ senior Dytanya Johnson stood near mid-court and reflected a bit on what his program has been through.
“We’ve been through a whole lot of adversity this year, behind closed doors. This feels real good,” he said. “My freshman year, me, Kendal [Smith] and Steph [Battle], after the varsity had lost we said, ‘We’re going to win it all our senior year.’ This being our last year, it kind of just hits you, this is our last chance. It’s big. Words can’t explain it.”
Stone’s core group of seniors has seen the program through one of the more successful runs of any public school team in the state in recent years, as Saturday night’s win marked the third consecutive regional championship for the Cougars, the first two coming in the 4A East. Stone is scheduled to play Blake of Montgomery County in a 3A semifinal at 3 p.m. on Thursday at Comcast Center in College Park.
Heartbreak met the Cougars at the conclusion of each of the past two seasons, with narrow losses in the 4A title game two years ago and the 4A semifinals a year ago. But Stone’s seniors were not going to let that happen on Saturday night.
Smith scored a game-high 25 points and Leandre Eackles scored 20 to pace four Cougars scoring in double digits as top-seeded Stone (22-1) simply ran away from tenth-seeded Potomac (18-7) as the game progressed.
“Coach [Dale Lamberth] had our game plan all straight,” Smith said. “We executed. Like I kept saying the games before, we executed. I feel we did a good job.
“We’re not going home. We didn’t want to go home. We weren’t going to settle for that.”
Potomac led 20-18 after a quarter in what looked to be a competitive battle. But Stone went on a 13-4 run in the mid-stages of the second quarter to take firm control that it would never relinquish.
Stone led just 37-31 at the break, but slowly crept away until back-to-back fast-break dunks by Smith left the margin at 53-36 five minutes into the third quarter. The Cougars’ lead grew as large as 22 points on several occasions from there on out.
“I had to count. I literally had to count, because it happened so quickly, just like the Friendly game,” Lamberth said of the double-digit margin. “We’re hanging around and hanging around and I look up and I was like, ’20?’”
Potomac had five players score in double digits, led by Antonio Jenifer’s 17, but it was not nearly enough to keep up with the hosts. In addition to the 45 combined from Smith and Eackles, Battle scored 13, Johnson another 12 and Jarvis Travers added nine in addition to his typical steady game as the team’s floor general.
“You know for the last three years the rap on Stone was we don’t have guards,” Lamberth said. “I think what people do is compare our guards to other people’s guards and say, ‘He’s not scoring 20 or 30.’ But I’ve always raised guards to be floor leaders, floor generals. You don’t have to have your name in the paper all the time. If you can suck that up, do that, you can help us get better.
“That’s what Jarvis has done. Jarvis has been in the background. People say [Johnson] is the inspiration. He’s the most visible, but Jarvis is really the backbone.”
The previous two years Stone competed in the 4A East against teams from Anne Arundel County. This year, re-classed to the 3A South, the Cougars had to show a different part of their game competing against teams from Prince George’s County.
“I think it proves to a lot of people that we’re not overrated,” Johnson said. “A lot of teams been looking at Stone and saying we’re overrated, ‘Look what conference they play in, they’re not playing anybody.’
“But I think this goes to show that when the ball goes up in the air that we can really hoop. We have a lot of weapons and I think the past three games you’ve seen almost every weapon we’ve got. It just goes to show we can hoop with the best of them and we’re just ready to do that the next two games.”
Despite the successful run this Cougars group has enjoyed, it was a long haul to get to this point. Prior to winning the 4A East crown two years ago, Stone had tasted defeat in the regional playoffs – and several regional finals – for several years.
“I’ve had my share of region games, when I was at Blair, too, and ups and downs,” Lamberth said. “Just like the kids, you have to put the hard work in. I didn’t get discouraged. The naysayers, ‘You can’t win the big one.’ My first year down here we went down to Patuxent and lost in the semis and the year after went to Chopticon and lost that. As a coach you just have to stick with it. I just believe that at some point you get the right group in here and if they start believing.”
And according to Lamberth, the Stone players that preceded the current group paved the way for the success the program now enjoys.
“In the locker room before the game we kind of rehashed, before they got here, some of the guys that have been here and kind of cracked the door for us as a program to get better,” he said. “They got encouraged. They saw people work hard in practice and kind of got a clue that, ‘Ok, this is what Thomas Stone is about.’”
Another thing the Cougars have is familiarity with each other. In addition to coming up the high school ranks together, some of the players have played with each other dating back to pre-high school days.
“We’ve had team chemistry since the summer of eighth grade,” Battle said. “It’s the same team, same attitude.”
Added Johnson: “A lot of teams say family, but I don’t think they mean it as much as we do. I have 11 brothers on this team, and like five fathers.”
So the Cougars’ journey will now end on the court where the season ended each of the past two seasons. In both of those trips Stone saw double-digit leads slip away in the second half and tasted bitter defeat. But those experiences have taught lessons that have the Cougars confident that the third time could be the charm.
“I believe everything happens for a reason and I think losing those two games got our minds right,” Johnson said. “It just makes you hungry. You keep running into a wall, sooner or later you’re going to look for a door. I think this year we’re going to look for a door and find a way to bring it on home.”
Stone 87, Potomac 68
P 20 11 14 23
S 18 19 24 26
Potomac: Jenifer 17, Green 16, Wiseman 12, Murray 11, Barner 10, Brockenberry 2
Stone: Smith 25, Eackles 20, Battle 13, Johnson 12, Travers 9, Jackson 6, Sharpe 2
Free throws: Potomac 16-27; Stone 10-18
Three-pointers: Potomac 4 (Green 2, Wiseman 2); Stone 3 (Eackles 2, Travers)
E-mail Andy States at astates@smacsportsnet.com
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