B-CC’s girls one-upped their male counterparts in terms of comebacks in the girls’ championship with a 17-point comeback to beat Clarksburg, 59-54.
For the boys, just getting to the county championship was no small feat. The Barons (19-4) had a 25 percent chance to face first-place Magruder because of a four-team tie for second in the county: B-CC, Whitman, Paint Branch and Kennedy each had four losses.
The county determined the finalist by taking four quarters and taping paper with the school’s colors and initial to the tails side. On Wednesday, officials gathered to flip the coins. They would keep doing so until one school had a different result than the rest.
Barons Coach Sean Tracy stepped out of a work meeting to join the Zoom call. One meeting participant became the “coin cam” — focusing on the floor to record the coins as they fell.
Four rounds passed without a winner. On the fifth, three coins landed on heads. The fourth was yellow with a “B.”
“It was more nerve-racking than the fricking game,” Tracy said minutes after his team completed its comeback.
Strong-Jacobson scored a game-high 24 points, all of them coming off layups or free throws. The Colonels held him scoreless in the fourth quarter, but he reasserted himself in overtime. He said Bromberger’s free throws gave “the whole team new life.”
Strong-Jacobson ended his scoring drought with an offensive rebound and putback to start the overtime. He did the same through a foul with just over a minute left to put the Barons up seven.
Magruder drops to 19-4. B-CC heads to the Maryland Class 4A playoffs as the winner of seven straight.
In the late game, the B-CC girls finished off a sweep with a wild comeback and a matching celebration. Exhausted players found enough energy to jump up and down with the plaque, Coach Ryan Ingalls hugged her assistants, and a mass of fans clad in blue, yellow and white roared in the background.
Senior guard Anna Tercyak led B-CC’s comeback with 17 points. Junior Francis Doyle added 15.
Bethesda-Chevy Chase (21-2) gave up 40 points in the first half. Ingalls then switched from a sagging man defense to a half-court press. Her team, buoyed by the adjustment, held Clarksburg (20-3) to just 14 in the second half.