Twenty-one games separate Meade boys basketball from its last defeat. Only two now separate it from a Class 4A state title.
The Mustangs steam-rolled Leonardtown as they had so many opponents these past two months, 72-49, and celebrated by cutting down their net. For seven Mustangs, it will be for the fourth and final time. They’ll advance to face the Laurel/Mervo winner in the state semifinal round next week at a neural site to be determined.
“When we come together, we’re a special team,” senior Ashton Turman (26 points) said. “We got guards, we got bigs, we got everything — and everyone is positive.”
Much of that was thanks to Turman. His day started fairly normal. Woke up, he said, ate something, stretched, and exercised with assistant coach Eddie O’Brien. Then, Turman hit six 3-pointers.
After a successful season last year, Turman hit his senior year at half-speed, not hitting the team-leading baskets that his coaches wanted of him. He devoted his entire winter to working with O’Brien and refining his shot.
“It’s great to see his hard work pay off. It’s very deserving,” Meade coach Mike Glick said. “We struggled a little bit offensively today, and Ashton pushed us over the top.”
Meade approached Leonardtown with so much confidence that perhaps it needed the reminder that the Raiders were, actually, good.
Leonardtown overall dwarfed Meade in size and the Raiders used it to their advantage to haul down more rebounds than the capable Mustang bigs at the start. Between that and the sheer amount of turnovers Meade surrendered, it was no wonder the Raiders leapt to a 7-2 advantage.
It’s the final eight, Glick said, so everyone’s going to give their best. The coach drew his team into a timeout to ensure they’d unleash theirs.
“We’ve always been in these type of situations,” Turman said. “We just stay positive, and it’s nothing, really.”
On the other side of a timeout, Meade took the Raiders seriously. Turman threw the visitors behind him.
Five 3-pointers from the senior’s hands in the first half alone guided the Mustangs to a rally in the first quarter and a 13-point pillow at halftime, 35-22.
The Mustangs couldn’t grow a few inches in 32 minutes, but they could outwit their visitors under the net. They could perform the kind of physical acrobatics needed to pluck a contested ball out of Leonardtown’s reach. More than once, Meade players battled over their own teammate’s fallen body to secure a putback.
And that was just the first half. Meade molded its identity around punching opponents in the mouth in the third quarter, ever since a slow start to the second half nearly cost the Mustangs their second game with Arundel.
“We talk about coming out with more energy than the others, and in the last three weeks, we’ve really embraced that,” Glick said.
Meade reworked its first half defense to box-and-one on Leonardtown’s shooter, Landon Windell. Initially, senior Isaiah Matthews marked the Raiders senior, but when three fouls sidelined Matthews more often than he liked, Glick relied on senior James Johnson to do it.
Windell let loose in the fourth quarter once Meade had a comfortable lead and benched all five starters. But in the third quarter, Johnson silenced him. The entire Raiders team only managed five points in those eight minutes.
The Raiders deployed the same passive, wait-and-see defense against Meade in the second half. So, junior Arouna Soumaoro christened the third quarter with a dunk. He, Johnson and senior Lucaya Baldridge closed the borders on the glass.
In the first half, allowing Leonardtown to loose three-straight threes in the fourth quarter might’ve worried Meade — had sophomore Keon Scott not cemented a 30-point lead in between them.
“Our mindset is to keep the foot on the gas,” Matthews said. “Keep it pushing. Once we have our lead, extend it and build on top of it.”
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LEONARDTOWN – 9 13 5 22 — 49
MEADE – 14 21 19 18 — 72
ME: Ashton Turman 26, Keon Scott 20, Arouna Soumaoro 11, Lucaya Baldridge 8, Isaiah Matthews 3, James Johnson 2, Kenny Lipscomb 2
LT: Landon Windell 22, Jameson Dyson 10, Adam Labows 8, Darius Searless 6, Xavier Davis 1
