FROSTBURG — Mountain Ridge was open early and often to start the Class 1A Region semifinals, and the No. 2 seed Miners (14-9) took full advantage.
Mountain Ridge opened on a 10-2 run and never looked back, cruising to a 77-57 win over No. 3 Allegany at the Coal Mine.
“Thought it was a real good win for us tonight,” Mountain Ridge head coach Tim Nightengale said. “We come out on fire in that first quarter, really put the hammer down. Played really good basketball defensively, offensively, everything was clicking.”
The Miners set the tone offensively in the first quarter with 27 points led by Cameron Breighner and Ian Duncan with eight points apiece.
“Props to Mountain Ridge, we felt like we were ready, could take some stuff away,” Allegany head coach Brandon Reed said. “The stuff we gave them, they killed us. Credit to them, they shot the lights out in the first half.”
Breighner finished with 15 points and 13 rebounds while Duncan scored 10 points with a block.
Mountain Ridge led 27-8 after one quarter and 46-24 at halftime.
In the first half, the Miners shot 18 of 27 (66%) from the field and 6 of 10 (60%) from deep with the vast majority off open looks.
“We were executing our offense, we were getting good looks,” Nightengale said. “We were cutting, making good reads off screen and roll action. We were doing all the actions we work on every day.”
The Campers (11-13) settled for early shots, especially from beyond the arc.
Alco shot 9 of 29 (31%) from the field and 2 of 13 (15%) from deep.
“It’s kind of the style we’ve adapted without Chris (Manherz),” Reed said. “They took us out of rhythm a little bit. We started pressing when we got down, and that’s the difference. We just weren’t getting the shots we wanted.”
The Miners’ Eli Sibley tied Breighner with a game-high 15 points, adding nine boards. Owen McGeady finished with 10 points and seven assists.
“That’s great, to have four kids in double figures tonight and distributing the ball the way we did,” Nightengale said of the balanced scoring. “We had a lot of good looks from guys getting assists going to the basket. That’s great for us to be able to round that out. We’re not just a one-player team or two-player team, we got guys who can do different things.”
Michael Cannon led the Campers with 13 points while Landon Holliday scored 12 with three steals.
Reed’s first season as head coach of Allegany came to an end.
The Campers were the only area team to beat a team ranked number one in the area poll twice in the regular season.
“I don’t know how much people expected out of us,” Reed said. “I had a great group of kids, a great staff who believed in what we were doing. I’ll always remember this group. I think we can hang our hat on a lot of good wins, we’ll be back and we’ll get better.”
Mountain Ridge advances to the Region finals at No. 1 Fort Hill on Thursday at 6 p.m.
The Sentinels (13-9) never led in the second half of its Region Final against No. 4 Southern (13-11), but found a way to win in overtime, 62-58.
The teams split their two regular season matchups as Fort Hill won in South Cumberland 66-60 before Mountain Ridge took the rematch 60-52 in Frostburg.
“It’s gonna be a war,” Nightengale said. “It’s number one team, number two team going at it for a region final. We’re playing on their court, they got the coin flip so we’ll go down there on Thursday and give it our best. I think it’s gonna be a great game.”