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Sports

Stallions' Season Comes to an End with District Loss

South County falls to Woodson 53-42 in district tournament opener

Lots of songs have a line that resembles this one: “I had my chance, but it got away.”

Of course, most of the time that lyric refers to the age-old story of boy meets girl, boy falls in love, boy loses girl. But on Tuesday night in Fairfax, the No. 5 seed South County boys’ basketball team left the W.T. Woodson gym singing that sad, sad refrain after seeing its season end after losing its Patriot District playoff game 53-42.

The Stallions couldn’t take control of the game during the second half, despite leading 29-28 in the third quarter and cutting a seven-point Woodson lead to 41-40 later on.

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“Basketball is a game of runs,” said South County junior forward Marqueice Johnson. “We stopped them from getting their run and we just didn’t get ours in the third quarter.”

The Stallions trailed 28-23 at halftime, then came out in the third quarter and kept the home (No. 4 seed) Cavaliers off the scoreboard for almost five minutes. The problem was, they only scored six points themselves. Their only second-half lead came at 29-28 with almost 13 minutes to play.

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Even though the Cavaliers had trouble scoring early in the quarter, they came back in the last few minutes, and behind back-to-back threes from John Schoof (25 points) and Drew Boehling, took a 36-31 lead. Schoof capped the quarter with a jumper and a driving lay-up to make it 40-33 entering the final frame.

“When they hit those threes, it just killed us,” said senior guard Alex Carrington.

Johnson led the Stallions with 20 points and forced Woodson to double and triple-team him late in the game.

But with the Cavaliers focusing their energy down low, the rest of the South County squad wasn’t able to convert open shots from the outside. Big Nik Biberaj hit the Stallions’ lone 3-pointer of the second half at the top of the fourth quarter to cut Woodson’s lead to 40-36.

“When you’re down by seven or eight, you’ve got to make a huge run,” said coach Wendell Johnson. “We’ve got to fight so hard to get back and Woodson, they just had to weather the storm.”

With three minutes to play, after a tip-in that looked like it actually went in off a Woodson player’s hand, the Stallions were only trailing 40-38. After Woodson’s David Nosal split a pair of free-throws (the last one the Cavaliers would miss all night) Biberaj put back a missed shot, and the Woodson lead was one, 41-40.

But Brandon Stepka found an open Nosal inside to increase the lead to three, and Schoof began a string of eight consecutive Woodson free throws  to make it 45-40 with just under two minutes to play. A shot at any time by the Stallions might have changed the game, but they went cold from the field. Jumpers were off the mark, inside shots were contested and a few desperation threes clanged off the rim. Each time Woodson got a rebound, the player would get fouled and calmly hit his free throws on the other end of the court. With 25 seconds to play, the Cavs were up 51-42.

“I didn’t think we shot the free throws well early, but we made ‘em when they counted,” said Woodson coach Doug Craig.

The Cavaliers will face T.C. Williams at Lake Braddock in the semifinal of the district tournament on Thursday night.

Carrington and his fellow seniors were sad to see the season come to an end.

“I know I’m not going to be playing at the next level,” he said. “This was my last game. So it’s heartbreaking. It’s my last time playing team basketball. “

“This is the worst thing about basketball. … only one team wins their last game,” Johnson said. “I thought we had a chance there at the end.”

The coach said he thought the Stallions had a solid season, though they fell short of their goal of an appearance in the Northern Region tournament.

“We’ve been here six years and this is only our second winning season. We’re definitely going in the right direction,” he said.

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