Knights hold on against Eagles

Thursday, Feb. 1, 2007

Knights hold on against Eagles

By Darren J. Gendron | Staff Writer

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Tyler Cockey has been a big part of Century’s successful sophomore class. He scored a game-high 16 in Tuesday’s win over FSK.

The Century High boys basketball team took it down to the wire to beat visiting Francis Scott Key 60-59 on Tuesday. Now the Knights are looking to win the Carroll County title, but it too might take until the last possible minute.

Century is now 2-1 in the county, forced to hold onto a loss to Winters Mill from the second week of the season, despite going 6-1 against county opponents since then. With only the last match-ups of the regular season counting toward the count title, Century head coach George Wunder will have his work cut out for him.

‘‘We’re going to need some help,” Wunder said. ‘‘But with the other teams in the county, we feel like we have a shot.”

The Knights also have a win over South Carroll on the record, with North Carroll, Westminster and Liberty to go. They’ve previously beaten North Carroll, and have dispatched the Lions twice. But Westminster has proven tricky, looming as their last home game of the season.

Getting to only count the last round of games is still an advantage for the Knights (9-6 overall), who have been cycling in three sophomores into the starting lineup with Tyler Cockey, Luke Wright and Matt Duerr. Against the Eagles, it was Cockey’s turn to shine, coming off the bench for a team-high 16 points.

‘‘I can’t be happier with their development as individual players and as a team,” Wunder said. ‘‘The nice thing about those sophomores is that they play with no fear. I have no problem putting them in at any game situation.”

Against FSK, Century had a 32-18 halftime lead, and was able to pad another six points to it in the third quarter.

‘‘We were playing our best basketball of the season in the first three quarters,” Wunder said.

But the Eagles started ripping into that lead in the fourth quarter, and Kalenn Bernard had an open 3-point attempt with the chance to take a 2-point lead for FSK. The shot missed, and Cockey was able to nab a game-winning rebound, keeping the ball in the Knights hands.

‘‘They handled it well,” Wunder said. ‘‘They could have easily folded, the momentum was completely against them.”

Wunder found a good point and bad point to the game, and oddly, it was the same issue—free throw shooting. The Knights were horrendous from the line, shooting only 10-for-26 as a team. But as Ryan Pentz in the final quarter, there was a marked improvement, with the senior shooting 6-for-6.

Century held a solid size advantage, with Duerr scoring 14 points and Brandon Beccio hitting 15.

By keeping in the win column, the Knights are also starting to target a goal of one of the top four seeds in the Class 2A West Region. Winters Mill and Frederick are battling for the top two seeds, while Middletown, Walkersville and Century are in the mix for the other two seeded spots.

Middletown has only four losses, while both Walkersville and Century are at five.

Former Knight makes his mark with McDaniel

The one-two punch of Ursinus was too much for McDaniel on Monday, with Will Furey and Nick Shattuck combining for 51 points in an 82-68 win in Westminster.

Former Century hoopster Brent Foelber did what he could for the Green Terror (8-9, 5-6 Centennial Conference), scoring a team-high 18 points. It was the seventh time this season that Foelber has led the team. He’s currently averaging 13.0 points per game, along with a team-high 7.9 rebounds.