by Andrew Wasik ’13

While Sherwood boys basketball may not have the record everyone expected them to have, they do know how to beat the teams they need to beat. Yes, Sherwood an 8-4 team is sitting at the top of the Montgomery 4A East conference with a 5-0 record.

On January 11, the team beat a 6-6 Blake team at Blake 57-53. Senior Daryl Brown and junior Xavier McCants both led Sherwood with 11 points each, while Breon Herbert had 10 points to lead Blake. The Sherwood team looked organized and managed to take control of the game late to pull off a tough win in hostile territory.

As the season starts to come to an end and it has reached just past the halfway mark, Sherwood is sitting in first place. Paint Branch a 10-2 team that Sherwood managed to beat 55-52 on January 3 is sitting in second place with a 3-2 conference record and Blair also has a 3-2 record.  Springbrook, a team who beat the defending state champion Magruder Colonels, is in fourth place in our conference with a 1-4 conference record but an 8-4 otherwise record.

High school basketball conferences are very top heavy and seeding means a lot in playoffs, if a team  get a higher seed then you’re going to get a team that you can easily beat while if you fall to even a third seed you could get a team that can upset you. Sherwood may not have lived up to all the preseason expectations, but they have won when it counted and for that reason are on their way to a high seed in playoffs.

The team looks to keep their four game winning streak alive on January 18 at home verses Kennedy high school, another conference opponent. Kennedy has a 9-4 overall record and a 2-3 conference record. The main key to a Sherwood victory is controlling Marcus Murray, the senior guard who is averaging 18 points a game. Kennedy is coming off a two game losing streak to Paint Branch and Blair.