Shedrick wins dunk contest as Potomac continues its legacy

Charles Shedrick was intent on keeping the tradition of a Potomac player winning the Hoops Fest dunk competition alive in front of the home crowd.

Reaching the finals against Battlefield's Dion Romeo and teammate Dominique Goodwin, Shedrick knew he'd have to pull out all the stops to earn the crown for himself.

That's when he reached into his proverbial bag of tricks and showed off his best attempts, displaying a 360-degree spin and put the ball between his legs and slammed it down. Then came two passes under his legs and a self-alley oop off the backboard for a dunk followed by a new addition to his repertoire.

"Those were my finale-type of dunks. Those are the dunks that just knock anything out," Shedrick said Saturday afternoon.

They certainly did, scoring him a total of 86 points from the judges, Atlantic Coast Conference players Lynetta Kizer, Monica Wright and Eric Hayes.

"My finale -- I just learned how to do that dunk," Shedrick said. "About a month ago I found out I could do it and I had to use that in the dunk competition, putting it between my legs and dunked it all at the same time."

The slam ended any discussion of the possible winner and extended Potomac's dominance of the dunk competition at Hoops Fest to three straight years after Donald Vaughn won it the last two.

"Donald won it the last two years and I wanted to cap it off with a third year," said Shedrick, a senior transfer from Georgia. "I hope the person next year wins it, too."

There is a good chance of that happening as Panther players have won the dunk event five of the last six years. In the 14 years since Hoops Fest began, Potomac has won it eight times. No other school has won it more than twice (Hylton won in 1998 and 2002).

There was no shortage of excitement or surprising winners.

The Hylton duo of Darrell Patterson and Shernetta Boyd walked away with the 2-ball title despite having never worked together before.

Prior to the start of Hoops Fest, Patterson learned his original teammate was not going to be able to compete with him, leaving the senior without a partner. Spotting Boyd warming up, Patterson asked if she would be interested in playing with him. She was already entered into the 3-point shooting contest.

"I just asked the [event officials] if she could shoot in it and he said 'why not?'" said Patterson, who finished this year as the Bulldog boys' all-time leading scorer with 1,342 points. "I have a lot of trust in her and that's why I picked her."

"I was just here to have fun and play," Boyd said. "Darrell, he knows how to do it, he can shoot real well, so I wasn't worried about it at all.

"He just asked if I'd mind playing with him and I didn't," Boyd added. "He's my friend and we won it."

Patterson had an additional motivation to just bragging rights and a trophy yesterday. It was the first time since the 2007-08 season that his father, Charles Speight, had seen him play. Speight was injured in a car accident in September of 2008 and was unable to attend any of Hyl-ton's games due to his recovery.

But yesterday, with crutches by his side, Speight watched his son team with Boyd to score more points than any other 2-ball team. Twenty nine of their 72 total points came in the final against Potomac's pair of Quiana Kizer and Mark Alston.

"I really missed him and I'm glad I was here today," said Speight, holding Pat-terson's trophy in the front row of the stands. "I've been to all his games. I'm doing better and I'm glad I got to see my son win a championship.

"He was on fire and he was anxious for it because it's his senior year. He wanted to go out with a bang before going to college."

"It was great for him to come out and see me," said Patterson, who is considering the option of playing at Potomac State College, a junior college associated with West Virginia Univer-sity. "Just seeing him here today just brought a smile to my face. It's real nice to put on a show."

Carlton Johnson gave Hylton its second title of the day, scoring 17 points in the boys' 3-point contest to beat Freedom's Devon Williams' 12.

Johnson scored 15 in the first round, edging Donald Farmer by two to reach the final.

"I was nervous," Johnson said. "But as soon as I got into the flow I was all right."

Johnson, who made 26 3's this year for the Bulldogs (an average of 1.0 per game), said he felt most comfortable once he reached the middle rack.

"You just have to keep shooting the ball," Johnson said. "I just kept seeing it going in and kept doing the same thing every time.

"I thought Graham was going to win it," Johnson added, referring to Forest Park's Graham Greening, the defending champ. "I was excited" when Green-ing didn't make it, he said.

Chanel Shands fought off an early bout of nerves to win the girls' 3-point shooting contest, beating Battlefield's Allie Rash 6-4 in the finals.

"Once you start shooting, then you start picking it up," said Shands, a sophomore. "You can't rush it. If you rush, you'll overshoot it like I did in the begin-ning."

Shands missed several of her first rack by shooting over the rim, a rarity with most shooters.

"Everyone was trying to motivate me and get me to do great," she said. "When I came back, I was nervous still."