By Katherine Fominykh Capital Gazette •
Feb 18, 2023 at 7:10 pm

To some, the county championship means little. It doesn’t change standings, records or seedings. But try telling that to the Meade boys basketball players, whose bright, unrelenting grins matched their coach’s from the moment they jumped to a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter to the time they hoisted their plaque in the air.

“[Winning this] it’s just a great, powerful thing,” Meade coach Michael Glick said. “It means a lot to the community. It means a lot to us. And I just think it’s nice to be on top of the county.”

Meade rebounded from a rough stretch to post a dominant win against Broadneck, 60-51, on Saturday at Arundel. It’s the Mustangs’ first county title since 2016 and second overall. And it might have only happened because the Bruins beat them before.

The Mustangs (20-3) didn’t exactly enjoy the second week of February. Meade put up what Glick believed to be its worst shooting performance yet to fall by 16 to Broadneck. Three days later the Mustangs fell to South River.

But Glick considers those losses a blessing now. They exposed major weaknesses in Meade’s play and led the Mustangs to drill executing on quick hitters, zone offense and set plays — even new ones they unleashed against Broadneck (14-5) on Saturday.

The Meade boys basketball team celebrates its win over Broadneck on Saturday in the Anne Arundel County championship game.
The Meade boys basketball team celebrates its win over Broadneck on Saturday in the Anne Arundel County championship game. (Paul W. Gillespie/Capital Gazette)
“I just felt like we needed it. We got our heads right,” senior Xavion Roberson, who finished with nine points and six assists, said. “We started locking in in practice, not taking things for granted. We bought into what we know we can do, and we showed them what we’re really about.”

In the first game against Broadneck, Meade’s Shawn Jones struggled to finish around the basket against the smothering Bruins defense. And the same was true of Saturday’s first quarter.

Broadneck snatched the game’s tempo away immediately. Jalen Carter popped off the first two of his six total 3-pointers as Broadneck built a 13-9 lead.

To this point, Jones had been a little too quiet for his own liking. Jaisean Kenner had been putting in work where he could on the perimeter, and Kyree Scott (14 points) completed most of the drives.

“It was all flashbacks of last game,” Scott said. “We needed momentum. I needed to give them energy.”

Jones, meanwhile, couldn’t escape the maelstrom churning around him — three to four Bruins clinging to his 6-foot-5 frame and preventing him from getting a shot off.

Then, Broadneck made a crucial error. It fouled Jones the moment he dropped a basket in.

The senior, who worked tirelessly since last winter to perfect his free throws, put his away. He then tore back to the basket and put another two down, and later muscled his way into the paint for a dunk.

“That was a momentum-changer for us,” Shawn Jones said. “We knew once we started scoring by taking the ball to the paint, getting more foul calls, that was just going to expand our lead even more.”

Jones finished with 26 points and 13 rebounds. His emergence helped Meade take a 31-28 halftime lead.

“We knew whoever wanted that third quarter was going to take charge of the entire game,” Jones said. “We believed in that.”

Meade would not allow Broadneck a moment to think the Bruins could claw their way back. Meade snuffed their offense best it could. The Mustangs got a double-digit lead and made sure it held. The Bruins cut it to eight, but Jones banked a contested ball for a 46-36 lead at the third-quarter buzzer.

Broadneck had one more chance to take Meade down.

Glick considers Scott to be one of the most effective defensive players in the league and the best on the team. He deploys Scott against opponents’ best players for a reason. The stocky senior led the effort to render the Bruins scoreless until Meade dug them a 17-point hole.

“He’s very good at attacking the basket. I was most proud of how he missed a couple shots he normally makes, but he shook that off,” Glick said, “and hit huge shots for us.”

The Mustangs believe in themselves, but believe that no one else does. It’s what makes moments like this special, when they can prove on a big stage that they can outplay the best their county has to offer.

“We’re underdogs,” Shawn Jones said. “People still look at us that way. But we know we’re Meade. We’re going to play with the name on our jerseys and play Meade ball our way.”