Lawrence Dixon scores 25 points, including the game winner as the Cavaliers top No.One Ranked Mt. St. Joseph, 58-56. James Quinn Feb 12, 2005 MDVarsity.com Magazine Staff MdVarsity.com traveled to Severn, Maryland on Friday night to see the latest installment of what has become one of the best and most intense rivalries in local high school basketball: the cavaliers of Archbishop Spalding against the Gaels of Mt. St. Joe's. The two programs reside in the very competitive Baltimore Catholic League (BCL) and the MIAA "A" Conferences. Gael Coach Pat Clatchey has built an extraordinarily strong program at the Catonsville Catholic school. The Gaels were Baltimore's No. 1 team in 2003-2004 and are presently ranked No. 1 in 2004-2005– even as Mt. St. Joe's has had to cope with the loss of two of the their best players for the season with knee injuries. The Gaels came into Friday's game at Spalding with a 19 game winning streak and a record of 25-1. The Gaels have won the last two BCL Tournament Championships. Spalding has become a perennial BCL and MIAA "A" Conference power under head coach Mike Glick and in recent years have become a nationally known prep program by producing such highly recruited players as former prep all-American Rudy Gay (UConn) and 7' center Will Bowers, now starting at the University of Maryland, and by competing in prestigious national high school tournaments across the country. Both Mt. St. Joe's and Spalding have produced numerous D-I college recruits in the last few years and both teams have several D-I recruits on their current rosters. Beyond that, the two programs have gained a great deal of respect because their respective coaches, Clatchey and Glick, are generally acknowledged as being among the top high school bench coaches in the State. Spalding's mercurial rise as a Baltimore hoops power notwithstanding, the Cavaliers' greatest single stumbling block on the road to Baltimore hoops prominence has been Clatchey's Gaels. Spalding had lost seven straight games to the Gaels– most of them in heartbreaking fashion, all of them in critical BCL/MIAA "A" Conference match-ups. In many regards, the game Friday did NOT look like the night that Spalding would break the Gael's streak: the Gaels had won 19 in a row and have consistently risen to meet every challenge in big BCL games this year, even as Coach Clatchey has had to adjust to the loss of tough 6'4" senior forward Courtney Thomas and talented 6'1" junior guard Dejuan Goodwin. Thomas, a versatile defensive specialist/rebounder, was also a team leader on the floor for the Gaels. On a team with a lot of very talented guards, Goodwin may be the Mt. St. Joe's backcourt player with the most ability. Unfortunately, for the third straight year, Goodwin has had his season cut short by either illness or injury. Spalding, on the other hand, has already lost 10 games this season and was unranked in the Baltimore Sun Top Twenty this year. The Cavaliers have a wonderful nucleus of seniors in Lawrence Dixon, Marquis Sullivan, and Justin Castleberry, but, Coach Glick's team does not have great depth or much size. Still, early in the week, Coach Glick told Mdvarsity.com, "It is going to be an unbelievable atmosphere up here on Friday night. Mt. St. Joe's against Spalding is an incredible rivalry– it is like DeMatha-Gonzaga down in D.C. We are going to have a packed house, the students from the two schools really go back and forth with cheers. We have had some great games against them (the Gaels), as you know. Also, this will be our 'Senior Night' at Spalding and that makes it special. St. Joe's has a great team, Pat (Clatchey) really has them playing great, but I think we have a good chance to beat them. They are the best team in the conference, but I think we have the best shot at beating them. I think it is going to be a great game." Coach Glick was right on both counts: the atmosphere was amazing and from the opening whistle it was apparent that the Cavaliers were not going to back down from the top ranked Gaels. The Gaels jumped to an 11-7 advantage behind senior guard Greg Woody's hot early shooting, but Spalding answered with a 10-0 run to go up 17-11. Spalding led 17-13 after the first quarter as 6'5" senior forward Lawrence Dixon scored 13 of Spalding's 17 points. The two teams exchanged leads in the second quarter and Spalding went into the locker room at halftime with a 28-26 advantage behind the play of Dixon, a Holy Cross recruit, and 6'2" senior guard Justin Castleberry. Dixon had 18 of Spalding's 28 points, Castleberry, a Bucknell University recruit, had 8 points. Gael guards Chase Adams and Brian Johnson led Mt. St. Joe's in first half scoring with 6 points each. With Thomas and Goodwin injured, Coach Clatchey is generally going with a three-guard attack paired with rugged, athletic insiders Louis Birdsong and Dino Gregory. The Gaels can put three ultra quick 5'9" players on the floor at once in Brian Johnson, Greg Woody, and Chase Adams. The early key for Spalding staying in the game was keeping Birdsong, a 6'6" junior who can score inside or on the perimeter, and the 6'7' Gregory, a fast improving post player, from going off offensively. The Cavaliers held both players to only 2 points in the first half and to a combined 18 points for the game. Both Gregory and Birdsong were forces on the boards in this game (they combined for 18 rebounds), but neither got into the flow of the offense on a consistent basis. The Cavaliers also kept Mt. St. Joe's outstanding junior sharpshooter Kevin Swecker from getting a lot of three point looks. The talented Swecker only hit one 'trey' and scored only 4 points. The second half was as fierce back-and-forth affair and neither team ever led by more than 5 points in the second half. Chase Adams gave Spalding problems with his quickness as he got inside their defense for a couple of tip-ins and lay-ups and Brian Johnson got his third three pointer of the game in the fourth quarter, but Mt. St. Joe's only briefly took the lead twice in the second half. Loyola College recruit Marquis Sullivan of Spalding went scoreless in the first half and he missed his first five field goal attempts, but he scored 10 second half points– including a couple of clutch three pointers. Although Castleberry and Sullivan both had big nights, the evening ultimately belonged to the slender, athletic Dixon. Dixon scored on a nifty post move and scored a three-point play with 31 seconds to give Spalding the lead and, with just 15 seconds left, he partially blocked a potential game tying shot by the bigger Birdsong. The Gaels got the ball back with 4.2 seconds, but Brian Johnson missed two free throws and Dixon grabbed the rebound with 22.4 seconds– essentially wrapping up the game. Dixon finished with 25 points and 12 rebounds. "Lawrence (Dixon) was great, it was probably his best game ever here," said an exultant Coach Glick after the game. "Justin (Castleberry) was huge also– all the kids played great. I told you this was going to be a great game, I'm really proud of these kids. St. Joe's is SO tough, this is a great win for us because they are so good, so tough, it was a great way to close this old gym…" "It's tough when you lose a close one like this," Coach Clatchey told MdVarsity.com. "We hadn't lost in a while, we'd won 19 in a row. So, we are not used to this. The way that they (Spalding) play, the line-up that they used tonght (sometimes playing four guards), we couldn't really use our regular rotation the whole time…what are you going to do?. This is a great high school rivalry, we always seem to have great, tough games with them. We played okay, we didn't play bad. Now we just have to get ready for TC (Towson Catholic) on Sunday." SPALDING- MT. ST. JOE'S NOTES: -One of the six Spalding seniors honored in the pre game "Senior Night" festivities was guard Jason Bisciotti, the son of Baltimore Raven owner Steve Bisciotti. Jason's parents were present for the game and Coach Glick and each senior player presented the mothers of the senior players with a rose before the game. -Coach Glick announced that the game Friday against the Gaels was likely the last Spalding varsity game to be played in the current Spalding Gym. The new Spalding Gym, which will seat 1,600 fans, is presently under construction. It is adjacent to the old gym. -We had hoped to see more of Mt. St. Joe's promising 6'8" 200 pound freshman center Henry Sims on Friday night. Sims, who was very impressive playing for the Gael's varsity team in The Rock Summer League as a rising ninth grader, started the year on the Mt. St. Joe JV but was recently brought up to the varsity along with a freshman guard. Though he is only a freshman and just starting to play varsity basketball, Sims is already well known to the coaching staffs at all of the high D-I colleges in the DC/Maryland areas. Sims did come off the bench to get a rebound and a basket in the second quarter against Spalding. "Henry will probably play more on Sunday against Towson Catholic, but with the (small, guard-oriented) line-up that Spalding played tonight, it was hard to really fit him tonight because of the match-ups," said Coach Clatchey. -Spalding got a great clutch performance off the bench from 6'2" junior guard Derek Young. Young had two key second half baskets and, more importantly, grabbed 7 rebounds for the smaller Cavaliers. -Before the varsity game, the Spalding JV beat the Gael JV in an exciting 51-49 overtime contest. A we have noted in a prior MdVarsity.com Profile in December on Spalding's talented freshman class, Coach Glick figures to get some much needed size and frontcourt fire power on his varsity in 2005-2006 from this group of players.