D6 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5 , 2019
secure a high enough seed for
Maryland to host the first week-
end of March Madness and then
to atone for the loss and get out of
College Park.
“We don’t want to feel that
same hurt this year,” Charles said.
“So that loss is motivation for the
veterans to get to the Sweet 16
and hopefully further. We only
have one more shot, and I want to
go out with a bang, you know
what I’m saying? We’re trying to
get to the highest point, which is
hopefully a national champion-
ship. We just have to step on the
court and do what we can.”
[email protected]Maryland women’s schedule
Nov. Opponent Time (TV)
5 Wagner 11 a.m.
10 South Carolina 3 (ESPN)
13 at James Madison 7
17 Delaware 1
20 George Washington 7
24 Quinnipiac Noon
29 Clemson* 5:45
30 Belmont* 3:30
Dec.
5 at N.C. State 7 (ESPN)
8 Loyola (Md.) 1
18 at Georgia State 11 a.m.
28 Michigan 8 (BTN)
31 at Northwestern 5 (BTN)
Jan.
6 Ohio State 7 (ESPN2)
9 at Iowa 8 (BTN)
12 at Michigan Noon (ESPN2)
16 Nebraska 8 (BTN)
20 Indiana 8 (BTN)
23 at Illinois 8
26 Northwestern 1
30 at Ohio State 6:30 (BTN)
Feb.
3 Michigan State 8 (BTN)
6 at Indiana 8 (BTN)
9 Rutgers Noon (BTN)
13 Iowa 6 (BTN)
16 at Penn State 2
19 at Wisconsin 8
25 Purdue 8 (BTN)
March
1 at Minnesota 4 (ESPN2)
4-8 Big Ten tournament** TBD
* in Daytona Beach, Fla.
** in Indianapolisdifferent players. The important
part of that is the unselfishness of
our team. It’s not about the
individual goals.”
Whether it was Pugh, Reed or
junior middle blocker Elayna
Duprey making a play, Flint Hill
had St. John’s (30-3) on its heels
and jumped to early leads in each
set to stop the Cadets from
gaining momentum.
“We were up 4-0 in all three
sets,” DeNure said. “That’s very
important because St. John’s is a
team that can come back. So the
early lead was huge.”
After winning the Independent
School League and the Metro City
championship, the Huskies will
look toward the Virginia Indepen-
dent School Athletic Association
state tournament as they seek to
complete a triple crown.
“That’s what we’ve been work-
ing for this whole season,” Pugh
said. “That’s the big picture. The
little games obviously count, but
the triple crown is a thing that
shows how hard we play.”
[email protected]Pugh embraces her laid-back
personality because she says it
gives her a competitive edge
whenever she steps on the court.
“A lot of people don’t think I
show a lot of emotion, but I tend
to think I do sometimes,” said
Pugh, a Cal State Northridge com-
mit. “I just stay calm and steady
because I think that’s really key to
my part on the team. Everyone
just looks at me, and knowing that
I’m calm really helps the team.”
Flint Hill’s success this season
hasn’t been solely based on two
players. The Huskies (27-1) have
depth and the ability to continue
to play at a high level even when
their key players go to the side-
line.
“A team can’t just focus on one
player because we have somebody
else to step up,” DeNure said. “I
think we are unpredictable
because we can send severalBY RYAN MCFADDENFlint Hill senior Denver Pugh
can be described as a silent killer
for the Huskies. Pugh, a captain, is
known to be quiet and laid-back,
yet her play on the court makes
her just as noticeable as the
Huskies’ vocal leader, Sydney
Reed.
Pugh’s performance in top-
ranked Flint Hill’s 25-17, 25-16,
25-13 victory over No. 3 St. John’s
in the Metro City championship
match Monday night spoke for
itself. Pugh’s offensive dominance
kept the Cadets, the Washington
Catholic Athletic Conference
champions, off balance and had
the Flint Hill fans who filled the
school’s gymnasium in Oakton on
their feet.
“Denver is not a screamer or a
high-energy [person],” Flint Hill
Coach Carrol DeNure said. “But
she has a lot of competitiveness
inside of her, and her play today
was outstanding. She didn’t back
down and made some really
powerful plays for us.”
METRO CITY VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIP
Pugh shines as Huskies quell Cadets
FLINT HILL 3,
ST. JOHN’S 0something. I want a ring. I want
something that hasn’t been done
around here in a long time.”
He doesn’t drill down to specif-
ics, but it’s obvious what he
means. Behind Michigan State,
the Terps are pegged as the
second-best team in their confer-
ence. A Big Ten title is within their
grasp. So is an NCAA tournament
run. That’s the time of year Cow-
an hopes to win games.
He wants his teammates to
hear him say that. He wants them
to believe it.
As the start of this season has
neared, Cowan has experienced
those inevitable reminders that
this will be a year of lasts. The last
first day of practice. The last
season opener. Eventually, the
last game.
Even though his return to
Maryland seemed guaranteed
from the start, Cowan tested the
NBA draft waters this summer
and gained insight along the way.
He understands what it means to
be a senior and the player whose
age and ability will push him to
the forefront. He is the one who
took the microphone to speak to
the crowd at a recent open prac-
tice, a role that almost certainly
would have belonged to Bruno
Fernando last season. Cowan has
already earned his undergradu-
ate degree, and Turgeon said
Cowan has become a better lead-
er.
“I think maturity is now, finally
at 22, really setting in,” Cowan’s
mom said.
She is not worried about the
load Cowan will carry into the
season, the way he will undoubt-
edly place a hefty share of the
burden on himself. When asked
whether it is healthy to explicitly
declare his ambitions for the year,
and to do so in a public way,
Cowan said he doesn’t think it’s a
bad thing.
The only other time he has felt
so strongly about wanting toa combination of joy and relief.
Cowan still feels certain that is
what secured his legacy at
St. John’s.
Cowan hopes the parallel be-
tween the two phases of his career
continues. He has vocalized his
goals over and over, usually with
words like this: “I want to winschool, at least a 45-minute drive
from their home in Bowie into the
District. She had frequent conver-
sations with her son, occasionally
surprised by how deeply he had
thought about certain things. But
she understood how badly he
wanted a title. When St. John’s
won, Traci Cowan said her son feltdone differently and eventually
allowed those thoughts to evolve
into a burning desire to create a
better outcome this season.
Here is what Cowan has ac-
complished at Maryland: He has
started every game since he
stepped foot on campus. Tues-
day’s season opener will be his
100th consecutive start. Sixty-six
of those have been wins. He has
scored 1,375 points, 23rd most in
Maryland history. He has 437
assists, tied for 10th-most all-
time. He was a unanimous selec-
tion on this year’s preseason all-
Big Ten team and has led Mary-
land in points, assists and min-
utes for two straight seasons.
But Cowan justifiably believes
those numbers, everything he has
done so far, won’t solidify his
legacy here. He needs to win —
not just a Tuesday night game in
January in which he scores 27
points against Minnesota, but the
games in March when careers are
defined.
“He just feels like he hasn’t won
the games,” Cowan dad’s said.
“He’s won, but not the games that
people will remember.”
When Cowan thinks back to his
progression through high school
basketball at St. John’s College
High in Northwest Washington,
he sees how it mirrors what he
has done at Maryland. Even
though he was productive early
on, he said, “I didn’t really get it
yet.” He calls his junior year of
high school one of his best sea-
sons of basketball. In his senior
year, Cowan said, “it all came
together.” St. John’s won the
Washington Catholic Athletic
Conference title for the first time
in 16 years. Cowan scored a game-
high 21 points in the season’s
most important test.
Cowan’s mom had what she
describes as the “fortune and
misfortune” of driving her son
back and forth from school and
practice through much of highHe will have help in the form of
blossoming big man Jalen Smith,
potential breakout star Aaron
Wiggins and more depth than
Coach Mark Turgeon has had in
eight previous seasons at Mary-
land. But Cowan is the senior
point guard, so the introverted
and occasionally moody player
will be tasked with making better
decisions on the court while de-
veloping into more of a leader off
it.
After that tournament game,
Cowan slumped into his seat
tucked away in the back corner of
Maryland’s locker room. The Ter-
rapins had just lost in the tourna-
ment’s second round. A late, go-
ahead layup by LSU’s Tremont
Waters rendered Maryland’s re-
markable second-half comeback
meaningless. Cowan served as
the most veteran member of the
Terps’ rotation, and he had just
played two of his worst games of
the season.
“Numbers really spoke vol-
umes for that,” Cowan said, de-
scribing why the loss has stuck
with him so much.
Maryland won its tournament
opener against Belmont, earning
the Terps’ first postseason win in
Cowan’s career. But he scored just
nine points on 3-for-18 shooting
and missed his first eight at-
tempts from three-point range.
Two days later against LSU, Cow-
an scored 11 points, making 4 of 11
shots.
“Tournament is the time when
you’re really supposed to turn it
up,” Cowan said. “I just didn’t
deliver. I think other players real-
ly delivered. They stepped up. It
was me who wasn’t totally there.”
After the tournament, Cowan’s
dad said his son entered a “dark
moment” in which he wasn’t him-
self but in which he also found
time for introspection. Cowan
wondered what he could have
COWAN FROM D1
accomplish a specific goal in his
basketball career was that senior
year of high school.
“Honestly, right now in my life,
winning something for the Mary-
land basketball program is proba-
bly one of my top priorities,”
Cowan said. “Just because I know
what it would do not only for the
program but for the state of
Maryland.”
The part he doesn’t mention is
what it would do for himself. The
moment that follows whatever
success Cowan envisions would
bring a flood of joy, which he and
his teammates would cherish. But
Cowan would also enjoy a long-
awaited exhale, the relief of
knowing he accomplished some-
thing worth remembering.
[email protected]Maryland men’s schedule
Nov. Opponent Time (TV)
5 Holy Cross 7:30
9 Rhode Island 9 (FS1)
16 Oakland Noon
19 Fairfield 8:30 (BTN)
22 George Mason 7 (BTN)
28 vs. Temple* 11 a.m. (ESPN2)
29 vs. TBD* TBD
Dec.
1 vs. TBD* TBD
4 Notre Dame TBD
7 Illinois 5 (ESPN2)
10 at Penn State 7 (ESPN2)
19 at Seton Hall 7 (FS1)
29 Bryant Noon (BTN)
Jan.
4 Indiana Noon (Fox)
7 Ohio State 7 (TBD)
10 at Iowa 7 (FS1)
14 at Wisconsin 9 (TBD)
18 Purdue 2 (TBD)
21 at Northwestern 7 (FS1)
26 at Indiana 1 (CBS)
30 Iowa 8:30 (BTN)
Feb.
4 Rutgers 7 (FS1)
7 at Illinois 8 (FS1)
11 Nebraska 8:30 (BTN)
15 at Michigan State TBD (TBD)
18 Northwestern 8 (BTN)
23 at Ohio State 4 (CBS)
26 at Minnesota 9 (BTN)
29 Michigan State TBD (TBD)
March
3 at Rutgers 7 (BTN)
8 Michigan Noon (Fox)
11-15 Big Ten tournament** TBD
* in Orlando
** in IndianapolisCowan embraces lofty expectations — and Maryland’s have rarely been higher
JONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST
“Tournament is the time when you’re really supposed to turn it up,”
Maryland senior Anthony Cowan Jr. said. “I just didn’t deliver.”The three seniors’ final year is
their best shot at a deep run in
the NCAA tournament.
“It would be the most fitting
way to send them out,” said Coach
Brenda Frese, who is entering her
18th year helming Maryland.
“They have stayed the course and
kept their heads down through
adversity when we’ve had inju-
ries or transfers and things where
the program has taken a hit.
They’ve always been the most
resilient ones.”
The seniors’ roles on this team
are clear: They’re tasked with
shepherding a relatively young
squad through the season, both
on and off the court. Junior
college transfer Sara Vujacic
rounds out the senior class, but
having just joined the Terps last
year, she is in a slightly different
leadership position.
Charles, Jones and Watson are
the stewards of Maryland’s cul-
ture, a position Frese made sure
to emphasize to the seniors in a
preseason meeting. The Terps
have plenty of reinforcements
this year from freshmen Ashley
Owusu (the top-ranked point
guard in the nation out of high
school), Diamond Miller (a rangy,
6-foot-3 wing) and Faith Maso-
nius (a vocal forward) to their
splashy sophomores, center Sha-
kira Austin and Taylor Mikesell.
As a result, Frese expects her
seniors to bear a slightly lighterend of the year. It marked the
beginning of a somewhat trying
time for the Maryland women’s
basketball team, if not on paper
— the Terps have made both the
Big Ten tournament title game
and the NCAA tournament in
each of the past two seasons —
then in the confines of Xfinity
Center, where the team stretched
to patch over holes in its roster.
Since 2017, Maryland has lost
seven players to transfers —
though some graduated and left
before their eligibility expired —
and hasn’t made it out of the
NCAA tournament’s second
round.
Now, only Watson, Charles and
Jones remain of that original
freshman class. They stuck
around to help carry the Terps
through their thinner days and
came out on the other side to see
the team healthier than it has
been in years.
The fourth-ranked Terps debut
in the Associated Press poll’s top
five for the first time since
2012-13. They welcome a slew of
highly touted freshmen that puts
their numbers over 10 players for
the first time since 2016-17 and
return all five starters from last
season. They were picked to win
the Big Ten, with Charles earning
the preseason nod for conference
player of the year.
SENIORS FROM D1
For Terps’ senior trio,
last shot at title is best
be that voice on the court to
remind them to keep talking or
remind them what they needed
to do. I’ve always been a leader
for us, but this year it’s very
crucial that I’m that speaking
piece at all times. Because
throughout the years I still had
that senior leadership ahead of
me.... Now, I’m that senior.”
The Terps were upset by UCLA
in the second round of the NCAA
tournament in front of their fans
in College Park, a loss now being
used as motivation by the se-
niors. Their objectives are tothe last two years, we’ve got to be
able to have that depth. We’ve got
to be able to have more than two
scorers, three scorers. We’ve got
to be able to have all five that are
options and share the basket-
ball.”
That message was reinforced
for Charles during the team’s first
exhibition game, in which Owusu
and Miller earned spots in the
starting lineup.
“The freshmen are so good, but
they’re really young,” Charles
said. “They’re learning. That was
their first scrimmage, so I had toburden in games. A huge part of
their role is to instill the pro-
gram’s values, habits and mind-
set in their younger teammates.
“If you want to be a champion-
ship team, a Final Four contend-
er, you have to sacrifice, which is
what they’re all going to do this
year,” Frese said. “Points, minutes
— nobody’s going to play the kind
of minutes they’ve played out of
necessity the last two years.... I
expect Kaila’s minutes to go
down, her points to go down,
because for us to get out of the
second round, where we’ve beenKATHERINE FREY/THE WASHINGTON POST
Maryland returns all five starters — including Kaila Charles, the Big Ten’s preseason player of the year.Richard Montgomery’s Emma
Chen (72-75—147) and Alyssa Cong
(73-74—147) and Churchill team-
mate Hannah Han-Kim
(74-73—147).
Yeoh and Han-Kim still walked
away with first-place medals. They
helped lead Churchill to the coed
team championship, contributing
to a two-day team score of 603.
Wootton and Urbana tied for sec-
ond at 605.
“I just wanted to have a team
title once in my high school career,
and that finally happened,” Yeoh
said. “It feels really good.”
The team championship was
Churchill’s 15th but its first since
2016, when it won the last of three
straight. Coach Robert Tarzy said
he was proud of how his players
performed on the back nine after
some had rocky starts.
“It’s a bit of a relief because we
had a one-shot lead going into
today,” Tarzy said. “We knew the
two teams behind us were just as
good and that we had to play well.
Fortunately, we pulled it out.”
[email protected]stressed out before and during the
round. I’m excited and happy it’s
over with.”
Davis entered Monday’s final
round tied with Churchill’s Kaylin
Yeoh after both players shot 69 on
Wednesday during the Class
4A/3A semifinal. Davis shot 76 on
Monday to finish with a two-
round total of 145 and edge Yeoh
and three others by two strokes.
On the boys’ side, Walter John-
son’s Jake Griffin (71-70—141) won
his first individual title, holding
off Sherwood’s Bryan Kim
(72-70—142) by a stroke for the
Class 4A/3A crown. La Plata ju-
nior Gavin Ganter (72-77—149)
won the 2A/1A title by a stroke.
The victories were firsts for
Griffin and Ganter, but history
repeated for Yeoh, who also fin-
ished second to Davis last year.
She tied for second this year withBY ALEX ANDREJEVWinning a state championship
is all in a day’s work for Bailey
Davis. The junior from North
Point earned her third consecu-
tive Maryland 4A/3A individual
girls’ golf championship Monday
after competing in an amateur
tournament in Florida less than 24
hours earlier.
“I flew down to Orlando Thurs-
day night, and my whole focus had
to shift to another tournament
and another course,” Davis said. “I
got back last night and came to
this tournament. It was kind of
difficult, but it was fine.”
The two-day state tournament
at the University of Maryland Golf
Course in College Park tested the
mental endurance of its partici-
pants. Semifinal rounds for Class-
es 2A/1A and 4A/3A were played
before Halloween, but the final
rounds for all championships
were postponed over the weekend
because of rain.
“A lot of pressure is taken off my
shoulders,” Davis said. “I was veryMARYLAND HIGH SCHOOL GOLF CHAMPIONSHIPSNorth Point’s Davis earns three-peat
Walter Johnson’s Griffin,
La Plata’s Ganter prevail