Largo's Cam Ward named 2024 Gatorade Maryland Boys Basketball POY

Junior forward led the Lions to the 2024 MPSSAA Class 2A state championship

Gary Adornato | Mar 21, 2024

Largo's Cam Ward named 2024 Gatorade Maryland Boys Basketball POY /

Largo's Cam Ward has been named the 2023-24 Gatorade Maryland Boys Basketball Player of the Year, it was announced on Thursday.

The 6-foot-8, 205-pound junior forward led the Lions to a 25-2 record and the Class 2A state championship this past season. Ward averaged 26.0 points, 11.5 rebounds, 2.7 steals, 2.4 assists and 2.1 blocks per game, and recorded 29 points, 16 rebounds, six blocks and five steals in his team’s 66-52 win over Carver Vocational Tech in the state final. A 2023 Washington Post First Team All-Met selection, Ward is ranked as the nation’s No. 40 recruit in the Class of 2025 by ESPN. He concluded his junior year with 1,913 points in his prep basketball career.

Ward has volunteered locally at the Capitol Area Food Bank as part of the Team Durant Family Foundation. He has also donated his time as a youth basketball coach.

“Cam is a very special player,” said Jonathan Blackmon, head coach of Fairmont Heights High School. “Now that he can score from all three levels, along with his athleticism, that makes him unstoppable.”

Ward has maintained a 3.39 GPA in the classroom.

Published Mar 21, 2024

GARY ADORNATO

Gary Adornato began covering high school sports with the Baltimore Sun in 1982, while still a mass communications major at Towson University, and in 2003 became one of the first journalists to cover high school sports online while operating MIAASports.com, the official website of the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association. Later, Adornato pioneered market-wide coverage of high school sports with DigitalSports.com, introducing video highlights and player interviews while assembling an award-winning editorial staff. In 2010, he launched VarsitySportsNetwork.com which became the premier source of high school media coverage in the state of Maryland. In 2022, he sold VSN to The Baltimore Banner and joined SBLive Sports as the company's East Coast Managing Editor.