SILVER SPRING — Fort Hill was on the verge of another shocking comeback, this time for a spot in the Class 1A championship game, but the Sentinels finally flew too close to the sun.
Fort Hill clawed back from a 17-point halftime deficit to top-seeded Cambridge-South Dorchester to trail just 47-44 with 5:40 to play following a Jabril Daniels 3-pointer; however, the Vikings had one final run in them.
Unlike Lake Clifton, Fort Hill’s quarterfinal opponent, Cambridge-South Dorchester didn’t crumble under the pressure, and the Vikings turned up the intensity to the tune of an 8-0 run that decided the game.
Fort Hill nearly did the impossible for a second game in a row, but the deficit proved too large a mountain to summit, as Cambridge-South Dorchester held on for a 60-53 victory on Tuesday in the Class 1A state semifinals at Montgomery Blair High School.
“We weren’t going to back down,” Fort Hill head coach Thad Burner said. “I thought we put up a great fight. … When you dig yourself that big of a hole, you have to get every single stop and almost make every single shot.
“It was a magical run, and we had a whole lot of fun.”
Deshaun Brown led the Fort Hill (20-5) effort with 18 points, scoring nine in each half. Jabril Daniels made a trio of 3-pointers and finished with 10 points, Gavin Carney added six, and Landon Sensabaugh hit a pair of 3s.
Cambridge-South Dorchester (25-2) will face defending state champion Edmondson-Westside, a 75-59 winner over Smithsburg in the other semifinal, for the 1A title this weekend.
The Vikings were led by Lashaun Moody’s 15 points, Anthony Hughes and Koby Ennals added 12 each and Samaj Pinder chipped in nine.
Fort Hill is no stranger to second-half comebacks. The Sentinels trailed seven-time state champion Lake Clifton by 15 at the half before a stunning second half, during which they outscored the Lakers, 42-16, putting them in the Final Four for the second consecutive season.
Facing a 37-20 deficit against the Eastern Shore champ Tuesday, Fort Hill knew exactly what it had to do.
The Sentinels opened the second half on an 11-2 run, and with the help of some foul trouble to Moody — the electric point guard picked up his fourth foul on a controversial charge call with 1:49 left in the third period — they trimmed their deficit to a manageable 44-33 entering the decider.
Fort Hill’s 2-3 zone was as effective as it was in the first half, but the Sentinels were able to rebound in the third quarter and limit the Vikings to one shot. Cambridge-SD had just two field goals in the period.
Sensabaugh caught fire with back-to-back 3s in the fourth quarter, and, following a Brown steal and score and a Daniels’ trey, Fort Hill was down just three with 5:40 left.
“They think they’re never out of the game, and they proved it again,” Burner said.
Brown credited the player-led halftime talks for Fort Hill’s acumen for second-half comebacks.
“That locked us in as a team,” the senior said. “Coming out, we played together. We didn’t play as together as we should in the first two quarters. When we came out at halftime, we really gelled together.”
Up against the ropes, Cambridge-South Dorchester took it on the chin and delivered the knockout punch.
Fort Hill had a pair of empty trips in a row, and the Vikings scored four straight buckets inside, the final a coast-to-coast finish by Ennals for a 55-44 Cambridge-SD lead with 3:51 left.
The Sentinels cleared their bench and pulled their underclassmen down 10 with 48.6 seconds left — leaving seniors Brown and Steven Spencer to finish out the game.
Fort Hill played far better offensively in the first half than it did against Lake Clifton when it was down 24-9 at intermission, but Cambridge-South Dorchester used an 18-3 run to take control at the break.
The Vikings started the game in a 2-3 zone and led 14-12 after one, and they opted for a 1-3-1 in the second, which generated steals that led to transition points.
Fort Hill appeared to weather the storm after Brown buried a 3-pointer to pull the Sentinels to within 27-17, but Moody hit a pair of 3s — the latter a 30-footer at the buzzer — as part of a 10-3 Cambridge-SD run to end the half.
“We just weren’t there in the first half,” Daniels said. “We didn’t do the big things we had to do to win the game. Didn’t play defense well. We moved the ball better than we did last game, but you have to do the other things almost perfect in a game like this.”
Fort Hill made nine 3-pointers but managed just eight buckets from inside the arc against the larger Vikings.
The Sentinels were 10 for 16 at the free-throw line and Cambridge-SD was 17 for 23.
Fort Hill was trying to advance to its first state championship game since the 1973 Sentinels were runners-up in Class A (now 3A). The program has now lost in seven semifinal games in a row over the past 51 years.
Still, Fort Hill did what few believed it could at the beginning of the season after losing Area Player of the Year Mikey Allen and All-Area first-teamer Owen Seifarth to graduation following the 2022-23 Final Four run.
“It’s a credit to them,” Burner said of his players. “We thought we could win all season, and we never faltered from that. That’s a credit to the assistant coaches (Nate Simpson and Gavin Palumbo), a credit to the seniors on this basketball team.
“From Day 1, they thought they were the best team around. We had a really great season, and it’s something we should all be proud of.”