Falcons Give Best Effort In Region Semis

Severna Park’s girls basketball team had a maintenance mindset during the middle of an injury-riddled season.

The goal: develop the younger players. The cavalry is coming before the season ends.

That approach worked as well as they could hope for, as the Falcons were playing close to their best basketball of the season down the stretch, all the way to a regional semifinal showdown with 3A title contender South River.

Severna Park lost the game 53-33, but that says more about South River than anything else – the Seahawks failed to beat an Anne Arundel County team by fewer than 20 points only once this season. The opponent? Severna Park, on January 17.

That was a mark of growth that Severna Park would build on as they waited for multiple starters and rotation players to return from injury.

“We showed tremendous growth throughout the year. After game one, we basically were just trying to piece together different starting lineups throughout the entire season, really, until the last few games when we had our crew back from injuries,” said Severna Park coach Kristofer Dean. “Our bench players did a great job and really developed well throughout the year to surround the starters when they got back.”

That development allowed the Falcons to go eight or nine deep with floor experience when everyone was back from injury. In the playoff game, Severna Park was forced to go even deeper into the bench due to foul trouble, while South River’s already deep rotation came at them in wave after wave.

“They’re deep and they get after you. We didn’t take care of the ball too well, but it’s tough against them for an entire game,” Dean said. “When you get down that much, you need to really sink your teeth in and get after it every possession. It’s just the name of the game, and you win some, you win some.”

Severna Park’s season closed with a record of 15-9, and Dean paid tribute to seven seniors who contributed heavily to the team’s success over the last two seasons: Erin Hussey, Payton Jeffers, Josie Crockett, Charley Coward, Lena Slade, Abby Cover and Kate Behe.

“I think we did a pretty good job the last two weeks just getting prepared and getting the most we could out of it. I’m proud of the hard work from every single one of them,” Dean said. “It was a next girl up mentality. They took the challenge, and they ran with it.”