Falcon Boys Look To Continue Improvement On Hardwood

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By Amy Russell
The Severna Park boys basketball team, 6-3, continued to prove the prognosticators wrong in early January when they rode a stingy defense to a 45-26 victory over Chesapeake High School.
Before heading onto the court, long-time head coach Paul Pellicani noticed something in his office that reminded him of just how unique his team is this year.

“We’re extremely young and extremely inexperienced. There’s a picture in my office from last year when we won the Huntingtown Christmas Tournament,” recalled Pellicani. “It’s a picture everybody takes, and everybody knows. The players in the half circle, everybody has their plaque and in the picture there’s the starting point guard, starting forward, and starting shooting guard on this year’s team, all with their warm ups on, which means they never got off the bench. I noticed that picture today and I thought, ‘oh my gosh,’ there are two captains and three starting players in that picture who you can tell never got off the bench. It’s no exaggeration, we really are very young.”
Andy Dowell, who led the Falcons against the Cougars with 14 points and Sean Fitzgerald who put up 13, were two of the players Pellicani noticed in the photo.
“No one really expected us to win any games,” said Dowell. “But we’ve been working hard and proving people wrong all season.”
The win didn’t come without a fight though. Severna Park took off in the first quarter, putting up 15 points to Chesapeake’s five, but in the second, the Cougars turned up the heat, holding the Falcons to seven while tallying six of their own. Ahead 22-11, Severna Park put together another good offensive run to extend its lead to 36-19 heading into the fourth quarter.
“Coming in we expected Chesapeake to be pretty tough,” said Dowell. “The seniors on their team started on varsity as freshmen four years ago, so they’ve been together a long time. They are a solid team… a lot better than people think they are.”
Fitzgerald said the win is only the beginning for the green team, which hopes to accomplish big things this year.
“We never surprise ourselves,” he said. “We know what we are capable of, and tonight was just another example. We moved the ball really well and played solid defense.”
“We’re best when we do those two things, and play our game,” Dowell added. “We get better every day in practice and we’re always looking forward to what’s next.”
Behind Fitzgerald and Dowell, Brad Keith put up seven points while Joe Galdi contributed four, Billy Koffler, Anthony Hungerford and John Galdi added two and Rassan Bouyer chipped in with one.


“We’re nine games in now, and we’re a whole lot more experienced than we were November 20 when we had our first scrimmage. They’ve really come together,” said Pellicani.
The coach believes his team plays really well together and plays tough defense, a really good starting point for a young squad. “Defensively we’ve been giving up around 40 points but tonight we held them to 26, which takes great effort,” praised Pellicani, who concluded, “We built our program around solid defensive cornerstones and that just led to a lot of good things tonight. We did a good job on the boards, just solid fundamentals. We’re not flashy, we just play hard and that’s not a bad place to be.”

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