CUMBERLAND — It was an expectedly up-and-down start to the game for Fort Hill, but the Sentinels showed a glimpse of their potential during a third-quarter run that won the game.
Fort Hill started the second half on a 10-0 burst, capped by a Landen Sweitzer 3-pointer, to go up by 14 after its defensive pressure in the full court led to a series of easy buckets in transition.
Boonsboro clawed back in the fourth, aided by Fort Hill point guard Gamil Daniels’ ejection after picking up a second technical foul and some tired legs, but the Sentinels held on for a 63-54 season-opening victory on Wednesday night.
“Boonsboro is a good team,” Fort Hill head coach Thad Burner said. “Much improved from last year. It’s their fifth game of the season, so we know that we’re up against it early on. We made a lot of plays, made a lot of mistakes. I think we’re kind of right where we thought we’d be.”
Fort Hill is coming off a 20-5 season which ended in the Final Four and with a an area championship for a second consecutive year, but the Sentinels graduated area Player of the Year Deshaun Brown and have a host of new faces.
Throw in Fort Hill’s yearly late start to the season after a fourth straight Class 1A football state championship, and the Sentinels are still trying to find their basketball sea legs.
Leading 32-28 at the half, Sweitzer sparked the decisive sequence by converting an old-fashioned three-point play.
Daniels followed with a floater and a dime to Liam Hamilton for two buckets, and Sweitzer drilled a 3-pointer for a 42-28 Sentinel lead.
Momentum changed quickly after Daniels was assessed a second tech for chirping to a Boonsboro player — which was the second ejection of the game after a Warriors fan was escorted out of the gymnasium moments earlier.
Boonsboro responded with a 7-0 flurry to lower Fort Hill’s lead to 46-37, but consecutive 3-pointers by Sweitzer and Hamilton gave the Sentinels a 52-37 cushion.
“You take arguably our best defensive player, you take our floor leader, and you remove him from the game,” Burner said, “but I thought our kids responded enough to get a win.”
It wasn’t pretty, as Fort Hill had its lead lowered to single-digits after struggling to break the Warriors’ press late, but the Sentinels had enough of an edge to hang on.
Blake Main led the way for Boonsboro with 18 points, scoring six in the fourth quarter.
“Practice is hard,” Burner said when asked about the late start after Fort Hill’s football run. “The first couple days it’s just a wash because they can’t really do anything.
“I thought the bench guys were really good. They gave us a few minutes. They were physical, but we were tired. You compound that with the tightness of the game down the stretch, we made some mistakes that I think we won’t make later on in the year.”
Sweitzer paced Fort Hill with 15 points, Hamilton had 11 and seven rebounds, Daniels garnered 10 points and five assists and sophomore James Powell added nine points.
Jabril Daniels is Fort Hill’s leading returning scorer, but he was limited after battling an illness over the past three days. Daniels and Landyn Green had six points each.
The Warriors led 16-15 at the end of the first quarter but were outscored 31-21 over the next two.
Boonsboro won the junior varsity game 45-39, and Fort Hill rolled in the freshman bout 94-12. EJ Scott exploded for 36 points for the Sentinel first-years.
Fort Hill hits the road next, heading to Hampshire (2-1) on Friday at 7:30 p.m. The Trojans are coming off a 54-31 rout of Allegany in Romney, West Virginia, on Tuesday night.
“Hampshire’s going to play hard,” Burner said. “Coach (Danny) Alkire’s teams always do. Just gonna try to overcome it like everything else. I don’t want to say we’re getting used to this, but I think this is year 12 or 13, and we’ve played in 10 or 11 (football) state championships. We’re just kind of navigating through.”