The Flint Hill Huskies’ basketball victory over the Sidwell Friends Quakers was significant on two big fronts.
The Friday (Jan. 31) home win by a 60-57 score tied Flint Hill (11-9, 7-1) with Sidwell (15-5) for first place in the Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAC) boys basketball standings.
In addition, the triumph was the 300th for Rico Reed since he took over as the private high-school team’s head coach back in the 2005-06 season, succeeding Steve Henry.
Overall, Reed has in the neighborhood of 480 career victories, winning some 180 games as a head coach of two teams over 12 years prior to coaching at Flint Hill.
“I’ve been lucky and happy to have a lot of very good players to coach here over the years,” Reed told FFXnow. “We have enjoyed success here.”
His 300 wins are the most by any boys basketball coach at Flint Hill since the school joined MAC in 1990.
The Huskies have been a perennial conference contender, a regular Division I Virginia state private-school tournament participant and a winner of multiple in-season tournaments under Reed. Until this past summer, Reed ran the annual Flint Hill summer basketball league since the year he was hired.
One of the teams he coached, for nine seasons, prior to Flint Hill, was the Potomac High School squad in Oxon Hill, Md. Reed is the only coach to have two different teams (Potomac and Flint Hill) win the annual George Long Holiday Tournament at Wakefield High School in Arlington.
He also coached the Edgemead School of Upper Marlboro, Md. for three seasons.
Reed had more interest after that 300th win in talking about how well his team played against Sidwell. The Huskies won despite missing three starters.
“The kids played hard and we were able to control the tempo and we had good ball movement,” Reed said.
The loss snapped Sidwell’s 30-game regular-season winning streak against conference opponents.
Jack Loyd made five three-pointers and scored 28 points for Flint Hill in the victory.
“He made some timely shots under pressure,” Reed said.
The winning shot, a three-pointer, was made by Dylan Fletcher off a skip pass from Ty Harris with three seconds to play. Harris had 14 points and six assists.
“We have played a very difficult schedule always and have had an up-and-down season. Beating Sidwell was a big win for us,” Reed said.
Reed praised Harris along with the defensive play of starting forward Kendall Jones and the contribution of Blake Fitzgerald off the bench. The three starters out were guard Everett Jones (hurt), Kobe Davis (sick) and Caleb West (college visit).
