CUMBERLAND — Trailing by 21 points early in the second half, CCBC Catonsville rallied to get within seven points.
Less than five minutes later, Allegany College pushed its lead to 22 and coasted to an 89-73 win on Saturday at Bob Kirk Arena.
“Lot to still work on in the second half of the season,” ACM head coach Tommie Reams said. “Definitely showed signs of what we wanna become, but that inconsistency is still there. Really like the team effort in the second half, thought our energy was much better. Thought we showed some defensive toughness and toughness on the glass.”
Leading 43-32 at halftime, the Trojans (9-5) opened the second half on a 13-6 run.
Manny Okitondo and Elijah Hall combined for 11 points during the run, which ended on an Okitondo 3-pointer to extend ACM’s lead to 56-38 with 14:42 to play.
Okitondo played his second game of the season after missing the first half with an injury.
He finished with 10 points in the second half and 12 overall, adding five boards and a steal.
“First half, we weren’t playing together,” Okitondo said. “My mental was a little bit down, and I just came out hard and played for my team.”
The Cardinals (5-10) responded with an 18-7 run over the next 6:27.
Khalil Montgomery inbounded to Yassir Supreme for a layup, cutting Catonsville’s deficit to 63-56 with 8:29 remaining.
Supreme led the Cardinals with a double-double of 20 points and 10 rebounds.
“We went through a lull there in the second half, couple bad decisions, bad angle passes,” Reams said. “I thought we lost rhythm. When we play at the pace in which we play, every once in a while we’ll go through those lulls where the legs aren’t as fresh and those mental errors stack up.”
Over the next six minutes, Allegany went on a 21-6 run led by Jaylen Brown’s 10 points.
Brown scored 15 points in the second half and finished with 23, adding six assists, three rebounds and three steals.
Hall hit a triple off Christian Brown’s assist to extend the Trojan lead to 84-62 with 2:37 to go.
Hall scored 10 points with a steal while Brown added five rebounds and three steals.
“Offensively, our ability to score from multiple spots, Elijah Hall with 10 (points), Brown with 23, Ponder with 20, Okitondo with 12, Little with nine, everyone across the board being able to contribute really allows us to get into some flows,” Reams said of ACM having four scorers in double figures.
Allegany outscored Catonsville 11-8 to end the game.
The Cardinals opened the game with an alley-oop dunk by Nassir Anderson off a Supreme assist.
Catonsville scored the first six points before the Trojans answered with a 14-2 run.
“That was the first thing I said, it felt like we got punched in the mouth the first four minutes,” Reams said. “They came out with a ton of physicality. I thought they had a really good game plan using those hard post-ups, back door cuts. I thought the game plan they tried to run of not just using the size they have, but manufacturing cheap, easy buckets on the mismatch was a great game plan.”
ACM led by at least seven points the remainder of the first half, outscoring the Cardinals 32-26 over the final 13 minutes.
Darrien Ponder scored 14 of his 20 points in the first half, adding six boards, three assists, two steals and a block for the Trojans.
Kamren Hayes scored 17 points with six rebounds while DJ Thomas added 16 points with two rebounds for Catonsville.
Allegany hosts Southern Maryland on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
The Hawks went from 3-26 last season to 11-5 so far this winter.
“Southern Maryland has two guards that can absolutely put it in the basket,” Reams said. “I think they have two kids, one’s averaging in the mid 20s, the other’s averaging in the high teens. If you don’t slow them down, they will put points up in a hurry. Our defense is really gonna be tested.”
Shamir Taylor averages 26.1 points while Amir Dade averages 17.4 for the Hawks.