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Gwynn Park High School boys basketball coach Mike Glick experienced a touch of the six-degrees-of-separation phenomena Wednesday night and it wasn't exactly a pleasant occurrence.

Facing Col. Zadok Magruder during the second day of the Roberts Oxygen Invitational at Springbrook High School, Glick ran into the son of a long-time friend and former Catholic Youth Organization basketball teammate, namely Colonels junior forward Justin Witmer, whose 21 points, including a timely 3-pointer to end the third quarter, helped the Colonels to a 67-61 win.

Joking that the sting of the loss was lessened considering who it was against, Glick was more than pleased with his team's effort, including trimming a 64-54 deficit with 2 minutes and 10 seconds left in the game to as close as four points, 65-61, with 23.3 seconds following a 3-pointer by Jalen Harris. A furious full-court press turned Magruder miscues into points.

“We're getting better,” said Glick, whose Yellow Jackets fell to 4-4 with three of those losses coming to 4A powerhouses Eleanor Roosevelt (6-2), Springbrook (6-2) and Magruder (7-1). “I'm proud of my players; the way they responded. They didn't have any quit in them. There's a lot of room for improvement. I think we need to get better every day and if we do, we'll be where we want to be.”

The boys side of the invitational gave some of the top public school teams from Montgomery and Prince George's counties a chance to play each other. Magruder is ranked second by the Montgomery Gazette, Gwynn Park sixth by the Prince George's Gazette.

For Magruder, the victory was the team's seventh straight since a season-opening loss to DeMatha and it gave the Colonels a two-game sweep at the two-day, four-team, non-championship tournament. They also own a 59-50 win against the Blue Devils this winter.

“It's just a statement for us because they're supposed to be the best teams in PG County and we want to be the best team in Montgomery County,” said Witmer, who nailed four 3-pointers in the win. “It's just a good win. We just played as a team, kept our heads in the game and overall played pretty good. Seven and one is definitely where we want to be right now.”

Like in the Roosevelt win, Magruder was hot offensively in the first quarter with 23 points for a six-point advantage. That lead grew to 38-29 at halftime following a 3-point play by Witmer with 1.2 seconds left in the half.

Witmer opened the third quarter with a 3-pointer and ended it with one for a 52-41 lead. Gwynn Park held possession late in the third quarter but a travelling violation gave Magruder the ball and Witmer nailed an open 3-pointer from the right wing as the buzzer sounded.

“They're about as good defensively as we're going to see this year,” Colonels coach Dan Harwood said. “We want to spread the floor, keep the ball moving and we were getting some good looks passing the ball to Nick [Griffin] and Justin. [Witmer] definitely knocked some shots down that opened things up for us.”

Magruder kept its lead between 6-10 points for much of the fourth quarter but Glick employed his “Jungle” press in the final few minutes of the game and it forced a trio of turnovers and led to seven straight points by Harris, who scored 13 of 23 points in the fourth quarter on mostly drives to the basket and finishes in traffic.

But a pair of missed free throws with 6.2 seconds by the Yellow Jackets and then a pair of double bonus free throws by Garland Owens (15 points) with four seconds left sealed the win for the Colonels.

jpeters@gazette.net