by John Y. Wehmueller | Staff Writer
Northwood boys basketball coach Tony Dickens has a simple standard for his team. If an opponent scores fewer than 40 points in a game, the Gladiators did their job.
Saturday’s 2A West Region first-round playoff game at Rockville High was the fourth time in 21 games this season that Northwood hit that benchmark. Unsurprisingly, the Gladiators are 4-0 in those games after a 54-38 win.
‘‘When we’re playing our game, we hold teams under 40,” Dickens said. ‘‘When we’re trying to match teams basket for basket, that’s not our strength.”
Northwood (11-10) advanced to play Century (Carroll County) on the road in Tuesday’s quarterfinal round. The game ended too late for the result to be included in this edition of The Gazette.
Three of the four times the Gladiators held a team under 40 this season, that team was Rockville (1-22). The young Rams don’t mind low-scoring games; a late-season strategic switch saw them intentionally slow the pace. Their final three regular-season contests were losses of 27-25 to Northwood, 34-21 to Einstein and 39-32 to Richard Montgomery.
‘‘We have traffic-light situations: red, yellow and green,” Rockville junior Paul Rosiak said. ‘‘The first time we played them, they beat us by 30-something [62-26]. The second time we played them, we had a shot at the end; it was close. ... I think they did a better job in this game of getting us to speed it up.”
Rosiak scored 23 of the team’s 38 points Saturday, including 12 of its 15 in the fourth quarter.
In the second quarter, Rockville spread the floor, effectively creating one-on-one situations against Northwood’s man defense. That kept the game close for much of the first half, but the Gladiators adjusted and maintained a double-digit lead for most of the second. The Rams cut it to seven with 2 minutes 37 seconds left in the game, but Northwood hit 11 of 14 free throws down the stretch.
‘‘We’ll take a couple of weeks to reflect on the season, then start off-season workouts,” Rosiak said. ‘‘I think everyone’s tremendously confident for next year. It’s not just that we don’t start any seniors; a lot of our top reserves are underclassmen, too.”
Northwood looks forward only as far as the next round. The Gladiators also won a playoff game last year before bowing out in the quarterfinals. Century, unlike Rockville, is an unfamiliar foe, but the team was prepared for that going in.
‘‘We’re gearing up for everybody,” senior guard Tayron Arrington said. ‘‘We didn’t overlook [Rockville]. We know they got a lot better from the first time we played them to the second time.”
Arrington led Northwood with 17 points Saturday, 11 in the second half. Senior forward Nate Epps netted 10 of his 13 in the first 16 minutes.
While none of Northwood’s players has been past the regional quarterfinals — last season was the school’s first on varsity in 20 years — the same can’t be said of its coach. Dickens won the 2004 Class 4A state championship with Northwestern (Prince George’s). Along the way, his team beat the two previous state champs, Oxon Hill and Eleanor Roosevelt, and won the title game over Springbrook on a buzzer-beater.
Dickens is looking to instill his personal playoff experiences in his new team.
‘‘It’s the playoffs: You win, you move on. That’s the bottom line,” Dickens said. ‘‘I’ve showed the boys tapes of some of my teams in Ohio that went to the playoffs, tapes of Northwestern. All you can do is preach your approach in practice, and hope that it sinks in.”
