March 11--BALTIMORE -- The calm before the storm has ended for the Northern girls basketball team, when after one of the more emotional weeks in program history the Lady Huskies resume their quest for their first ever Maryland state title when they take the court tonight at 9 p.m. to face Mardella in the Maryland 1A State Tournament semifinal at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.
The Huskies (22-4) are coming off a week that saw them avenge a loss to Southern in the West Section semifinals on Tuesday, March 1, beat defending section champ Allegany on Thursday, March 3 and beat the reigning West Region champ Smithsburg on Saturday. They have now had five days off.
Mardella, which made it to the first round of last year's state tournament before being bounced, beat Pocomoke 59-43 to repeat as as East Region champs.
"They are an extremely athletic team that likes to run up and down the floor," said Northern head coach Steve Fratz. "They aren't a big three-point shooting team, but they will shoot jump shots. And they are tough on the boards. They just crash down hard on every shot."
The Warriors (25-1) have been rolling through competition this season, winning most of their games by a heavy margin. Fratz, whose Huskies have been involved in much closer contests during the playoffs, is hoping that fact has readied his team while leaving Mardella unprepared.
Northern's playoffs began with an easy win over Clear Spring, but was followed by another Garrett County battle with Southern.
During the 2010 sectional quarterfinals, Northern, which had beat Southern the two times the teams played during the regular season, were upset by the Rams, 50-45. This year's quarterfinals had the Huskies enter with two previous wins over the Rams, but this time they avoided the "trap" and rallied from a halftime deficit to win 52-44.
Kaitlynn Fratz scored 24 points, including the 2,000th of her career, and Terra McKenzie added 17 points and seven rebounds as the Huskies got their sixth win in the last eight meetings with the Rams.
Southern got out to a 24-19 lead after one half, but Northern matched the 19 points it scored in the first half with 19 more in the third quarter to lead 38-32 going into the fourth.
"We did not want to lose to Southern," Fratz stated. "They embarrassed us last year during the same game, and I think because of how much we wanted to win we put some undo pressure on ourselves early on."
The sectional final put the Huskies into a rubber match with the Campers after the teams spilt the pair of regular season contests. In what has been the best rivalry in the area the past couple of seasons, Northern raced out of the gates to take a 21-16 lead by the end of the first quarter, and extended its lead at halftime to 12 points (38-26).
The score was 53-40 early on in the fourth, but Allegany would get no closer than 57-50 with 3:38 remaining and the Huskies would win by the final of 72-57.
Fratz scored another 24 points, Morgan Brosnihan added 23 and Allison Yommer and Terra McKenzie combined to score another 20, to lead Northern to its first-ever win at Allegany.
"After beating Southern and getting the huge win against Allegany I was a little concerned about Smithsburg. Having gone through the games we just did and then having to travel to Frederick to play a tough team I was a little worried we'd be worn out."
The first half against the Leopards show that Coach Fratz may have right. Northern shot just 8-for-26 during the first half, and trailed by as many as eight points in the first two quarters.
Things began to change when the Huskies started the third quarter on a 6-1 run to tie the score at 28, and kept it close for the remainder of the third.
McKenzie, who had been dealing with foul trouble, was huge for the Huskies in the fourth quarter, picking up Northern's last 10 points of the game. She was 5-for-6 from the foul line down the stretch and finished with a total of 20 points.
Kaitlynn Fratz lead her team with 25 points.
This is the second time that a Northern team has advanced to the state tournament. The Huskies reached to the finals in 1997 before losing to Francis Scott Key 53-23.
Mardela is led by a trio of seniors: Aleshia Hoobs, Jasmine Jones and Taylor Siggers. The girls combined to score 48 of the Warriors' 59 points in the win over Pocomoke. Siggers had 24 of them.
"They have some size on the inside with a 5-foot-11 girl who can also move well in the paint. Their best player is 5-10 and drives hard to the rim, pushes the ball on the fastbreak and likes to pull up on the baseline with a nice little jumper," said Coach Fratz.
The coach does see areas where he thinks the Huskies can take advantage of match-ups.
"They can play an aggressive man-to-man defense if you are a good shooting team, but they don't do it very often. If they want to pack it in with a zone and we can hit our shots we can do some damage. There could be a favorable pairing on some of their guards, too. Again, if we hit our shots early on it could open some chances to drive."
As of Thursday night the Northern coach still wasn't sure if any of it was actually happening tonight.
"I have to keep pinching myself. We took the three seniors (Kaitlynn Fratz, McKenzie and Brosnihan) down to see Southern in the state tournament when the girls were in sixth grade, and it's been their dream ever since then to play there. To know we'll be there on that same court six years later... It just doesn't seem real."
It all becomes real tonight at 9 p.m.
Chris is a reporter for the Cumberland Times-News. Write to him at cappel@times-news.com
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