ACCIDENT — The last time No. 3 Fort Hill played Northern, the Sentinels pulled away after a close first half and never looked back, winning 83-39.
On Tuesday, the Huskies (5-7, 0-5 Western Maryland Athletic Conference) kept it much closer, but Fort Hill did just enough for a 72-65 victory inside the Igloo.
“I didn’t think we played our best, but we were able to come out with a win,” Fort Hill head coach Thad Burner said. “I thought Northern really played a hard game, their effort was much greater than ours.”
Leading 29-27 at halftime, the Sentinels (8-3, 2-1 WestMAC) opened the second half on a 9-2 run.
Trailing 38-29 with 5:38 left in the quarter, Northern got to within three points at 38-35 on a Jayden McNally fadeaway.
“I thought we played a good, gritty game,” Northern head coach Jeremy Johnson said. “This is the Northern basketball that I’ve been waiting to see. They’ve shown it to me twice now, once against Southern and now tonight. We minimized mistakes, did a lot of the intangibles we talked about.”
McNally scored a game-high 27 points with 21 after halftime and 17 in the fourth quarter.
Fort Hill ended the quarter on a 12-4 run and took a 50-39 lead into the fourth.
The Sentinels pushed the lead to 56-39 with 7:10 to play after 3-pointers from Sam Spencer and Ramelo Palmisano.
“The third quarter was kind of our demise,” Johnson said. “We didn’t make any shots, they made a couple extras. I don’t think either team played well in the third quarter. They just played a little better and it was just too much to overcome.”
The Huskies got within nine points at 66-57 with 2:24 remaining, capitalizing on a Fort Hill travel with a Miller triple.
After Landyn Green hit a reverse layup to stretch the Sentinel lead to 68-57, Northern trailed by double digits until the final 30 seconds.
“We were making some shots, I thought we were playing with some intensity,” Burner said. “We got it up to 17 points at one point. But good teams need to put their foot on the gas and continue to push through. I thought we were a little lackadaisical whether it was on the glass or on defense.”
The Huskies cut the margin to 72-65 with eight seconds left, but it was too late to complete a comeback.
It was a 3-point shootout in the first quarter with nine combined triples.
Jameson Powell-Morris hit three in the opening frame and scored 11 of Fort Hill’s 20 points in the first.
Powell-Morris led the Sentinels with 22 points, scoring 16 in the first half.
Northern hit five 3-pointers in the frame with McNally and Ansen Miller each knocking down a pair.
Miller and Aiden Pickerel each scored 12 points, both hitting four triples.
The Sentinels led 20-19 after one quarter, then the scoring slowed down on both sides in the second.
The teams combined for 16 points in the second quarter with Fort Hill leading 9-7.
“They made some shots in the first half,” Burner said. “I thought we were a little lackadaisical on defense. I thought we played a little better defensively the third period and then toward the latter part of the game we weren’t as good.”
Liam Hamilton finished with 18 points including 10 after halftime for the Sentinels.
Caleb Hinebaugh added 10 points for the Huskies.
In the previous matchup, Fort Hill broke a 25-all tie in the second quarter with 13 unanswered points to end the first half.
The Sentinels went on to outscore Northern 58-14 to end the game.
“It was a very similar half,” Johnson said of comparing the previous matchup to Tuesday’s. “They outscored us in the first game, kinda took away with about three minutes to go and they never looked back. I gotta give credit to our boys, they didn’t let that happen.”
The Huskies entered Tuesday averaging 4.5 made 3-pointers per game, but knocked down 13 with three players burying four.
Fort Hill averages 4.4 made triples and hit nine.
The Sentinels host East Hardy (5-3) on Wednesday, followed by a trip to No. 1 Southern (7-5, 4-0 WestMAC) on Monday at 7 p.m.
Fort Hill beat East Hardy 53-48 last Wednesday on the road.
Northern hosts Mountain Ridge (5-5, 1-2 WestMAC) on Friday at 7 p.m. The Miners won 72-53 last Wednesday in Frostburg.
“Just depends on if we play 32 minutes of ball or not,” Johnson said. “If we play 32 minutes of ball, I like our chances in every game moving forward.”