Johnson and Smith combine for 19 in OT to lift St. Mary’s

Tevin Johnson scored a game-high 28 points with four rebounds and two steals, and Chakhan Smith registered 19 points to lead the St. Mary’s to a 73-62 overtime victory against Meade in the semifinal round of the 36th annual Capital City Classic at Annapolis High School, on Tuesday.

The tandem combined for all 19 of the Saints’ overtime points.

“We played really solid on defense and, on offense, we executed on our plays in overtime, and that’s how we got the win,” said Johnson, who went 9-for-12 at the line and scored eight points in overtime.

Smith, who missed the previous two games, sparked an 8-0, overtime-opening run with a fast-break layup and scored 11 points in the period to help the Saints advance to the championship.  They’ll play Annapolis at 7:00 p.m. Wednesday.

“We made most of our free throws and got it done,” Smith said. “We kind of let up defensively in the fourth quarter, but we finished it in overtime going hard – getting stops and finishing when we had to.”

St. Mary’s (6-7) trailed, 19-11, after the first quarter, but Johnson scored seven of the team’s nine consecutive points to open the second and lift the Saints to a 20-19 lead.

Meade (3-5) answered with a 6-0 run, but Taylor Hurst made a basket, and Johnson hit a three-pointer with 55 seconds remaining in the half to tie the score at 25.

The Saints outscored Meade, 13-12, in the third quarter for a 38-37 lead, and the teams went back-and-forth in a physical contest during the fourth quarter. Johnson hit two free throws with 8.2 seconds left in regulation to lift the Saints up, 54-52, and Aaron Brown made two with four left to force overtime.

“The kids came out really focused,” St. Mary’s coach Brian Konik said. “I was nervous because I went back to having our two seniors, Niles Tower and Taylor Hurst, in there together. We had two big guys so we gave up some ball-handling, but we were able to fight inside and get some rebounds, and we did a good job of finishing off layups in the transition.”

Hurst added 11 points, five rebounds three assists and a block to help St. Mary’s.
Brown led Meade with a team-high 25 points along with four rebounds, and he scored nine in the first quarter to get the Mustangs rolling. But the Mustangs went a dismal 15-for-34 from the free-throw line.

“We went into overtime, and I guess we were too comfortable,” Brown said. “We thought we had it, and they started hitting and we started fouling, and it all went downhill from there. The thing that hurt us the most was missing free throws.”

Joshua Gail recorded 11 points, and Sean Wood and Anthony Watkins each put up seven to help the Mustangs.

“We got off to a good start, and we got back to good man defense and good man to man offense, but the big standout for us was our free-throw shooting tonight wasn’t good,” Meade coach Pete Corriero said. “Believe it or not, we do practice free throws. We forced overtime, we were down, we got back into it.  Our guys want to win. They play hard, but we have to play a complete basketball game.”