College Basketball: HCC men lose in OT, women cruise past Baltimore

The Hagerstown Community College men’s basketball team proved you can’t lose a game in the first half.

And you can survive a setback at the end of regulation.


But in overtime, it has to be winning time. And for the Hawks on Wednesday, it wasn’t.

Baltimore’s Sean Farr drove the lane for an acrobatic, highly contested layup with 3 seconds remaining in the extra period to defeat HCC 81-79 in the men’s half of a basketball doubleheader at the HCC athletic center.

HCC’s women defeated Baltimore 65-52 in the opener.

The Hawks (22-3, 13-2) not only lost the game, but they also dropped their chance at a third straight Maryland JuCo Conference regular-season title in the loss. And they did it by playing very disjointed the entire game.

“Baltimore beat us in the way we usually win games,” said HCC coach Barry Brown. “They executed. We didn’t defend and rebound, and our offense was very impatient as guys started to think they could do things by themselves, which played into the strong defense Baltimore was playing.”

It was an early mess that HCC cleaned up by  halftime, looked to be in control late in the game only to survive a 30-second effort to score the final basket by the Panthers (18-8, 14-1).

Baltimore (18-8, 14-1) took a 12-0 lead in the first 4 1/2 minutes in the game before Jerel Carter scored on a 15-foot jumper at the 15:22 mark to get the Hawks on the board.

HCC spent the rest of the half getting back into the game and trailed just 36-35 at the intermission.

“We were in a 12-point hole to start the game against a very good team and used a lot of energy to get back into it,” Brown said. “Then we got a lead and didn’t play our game.”

Kervin Remeau scored the first five points of the second half to give HCC a 40-36 lead, but the Hawks couldn’t stand the prosperity.

The game see-sawed to three ties before the Hawks ran off a 9-0 run to take a 60-52 lead with 7:13 remaining on a Christian Leach layup.

Baltimore battled back to tie the game at 69 on a power move by Farr with 47 seconds remaining in regulation. HCC turned the ball over with 33 seconds left, and then prevented Baltimore from scoring the winning basket in regulation.

HCC took an early 72-69 in overtime and then came back to tie twice, the final time at 79 on a Donte Thomas drive.

Again with 30 seconds to kill, the Panthers worked for the final shot, resulting in Fair’s power move to the basket. HCC worked the ball to Leach for a 20-foot 3 at the buzzer that bounced off the rim as the buzzer sounded.

Xavier Richards led Baltimore with 15 points.

Thomas topped HCC with 21.

“This wasn’t a JuCo tournament game and It wasn’t a region game, but I still don’t like to lose,” Brown said. “We have been on a roll and now we lost one. We have to see if we can come back like a team to play in the big games. And believe me, the big games are about to come.”