FROSTBURG — Leading 25-23 at halftime, No. 4 Southern dominated the third quarter and built the cushion needed for a 63-50 win at No. 2 Mountain Ridge on Monday in the Coal Mine.
“We’ve told our kids the entire year, we gotta play defense,” Southern head coach Hunter Broadwater said. “I thought we did a really good job executing the defensive game plan. Taking away two of their primary options, I thought we did a pretty good job.”
The Rams (4-1, 1-0 Western Maryland Athletic Conference) had five players score and they all finished in double figures.
Southern opened the third quarter on a 10-2 run led by Jacob Brown’s five points and Ryan Bird’s two assists and two points.
“Tough night for us, Southern came in here and was hungry for us,” Mountain Ridge head coach Tim Nightengale said. “They outplayed us and set the tone early with their aggressive play. We missed shots and didn’t have a good flow tonight.”
Brown scored five points while Bird earned a pair of assists and scored on a put back during the run.
Brown finished with 14 points, two assists and a steal while Bird recorded 10 points and four assists.
Now leading 35-25 with 5:08 remaining in the period, Southern went on a 14-4 run to stretch the margin to 49-29.
“They were hitting their shots, getting offensive rebounds,” Nightengale said. “They were getting dumps to guys, sliding over to help and we weren’t getting the next rotation. That’s my fault, coaching fault, we’ll take the blame for that.”
Graham Harvey scored seven points and swatted a shot from behind for the Rams.
Harvey scored a game-high 19 points, adding four blocks, three assists and two steals.
“I thought Graham did a really good job defensively,” Broadwater said. “We told him, he’s got one of the best players in the area and someone that’s his size, he’s gotta stay down. He can’t fall for his pump fakes, we gotta stay in contest and he did a really good job of that tonight.”
Southern led 49-34 heading to the fourth and went up 20 with 3:45 to play.
The Miners (2-0, 0-1 WestMAC) rallied, led by Cameron Breighner’s six points and John Delaney’s four assists to get within 10 points at 56-46.
Breighner and Delaney each scored 12 points with Delaney adding eight assists and two steals.
Less than a minute later, Braden Lucas blocked a shot and turned it into an and-one layup on the other end.
Lucas scored 10 points with three assists, two steals and two blocks.
With a 15-point advantage and 2:35 on the clock, the Rams controlled the rest of the game.
Southern opened the game on a 9-4 run before Mountain Ridge answered with a 8-1 run to end the first quarter.
With the Miners ahead 12-10 after one, the Rams opened the second quarter on a 10-8 run.
“I thought we took some contested shots that we should’ve kicked out, where it came to a jump stop and kicked out to an open shooter,” Nightengale said. “We took a lot of forced, contested shots for a lot of the game. We were taking shots going away from the basket and we were out of sync tonight.”
With 2:20 before halftime, Sean Eiswert sent a backdoor pass to Brown for the go-ahead score.
AJ Lauder evened the score at 20 on a triple for the Miners before Alec Van Sheetz answered with a layup to put Southern ahead 25-23 at the break.
“We told the guys, we gotta keep pushing, we gotta win the first three minutes of the second half,” Broadwater said. “That’s when we came on and started the second half on a pretty good run.”
Van Sheetz finished with 10 points and five assists.
Mountain Ridge won the junior varsity game 57-33 led by Declan McGeady’s 15 points while Matthew Conn led the Rams with 13.
The Rams host the Snowball Classic beginning on Friday against Hereford at 8 p.m.
Southern won last year’s matchup 56-53 over the Class 2A Bulls.
“They’re gonna be really good, they’ve brought everyone back,” Broadwater said. “It took everything we had to beat them.”
The Miners are at Hampshire (0-5) next Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.