Trinity Catholic defeats St. Mary’s boys hoop

WATERTOWN ? In a game in which the score was not indicative of how the game actually was played, the St. Mary’s boys basketball team’s season came to an abrupt end last night. Despite a gutsy performance against a veteran team, the Spartans lost to Trinity Catholic 70-57 in D4 North first-round play.”It was a collective group effort tonight,” St. Mary’s coach Kevin Moran said. “I’m not at all discouraged with tonight’s performance. We did get out to a bit of a slow start, but we came together, showed more focus and energy and started to make a run.”It was a forgettable start for the Spartans (12-9). They only managed four points off one field goal. In fact, all four points came from freshman Matt Manning, who showed a lot of grit while he was out on the floor as he constantly was hustling. He finished with four points and eight rebounds.”(Manning) is the typical type of guy that you love in high school basketball,” said Moran. “To quote the cliché, he does all of the dirty work. If the entire team played at his pace for the entire game we would be getting a lot of rebounds.”St. Mary’s broke out of the opening jitters by scoring nine points in 16 seconds. This scoring spurt came after Moran changed the defense to a full-court press ? a defense the Falcons (15-6) were slow to find an answer to.”We knew that (the press) was coming,” Trinity coach Scott Kmack said. “We had been preparing for it since we lost the coin-flip and knew we were going to play St. Mary’s.”Nick Gagliolo picked up the intensity during this second-quarter run. He scored six of his 12 points in the second quarter. He also pulled down a team-high 10 rebounds for the Spartans. Ronsanto Campbell also got hot during this run. He finished with 10 points, as did Devon Thompson.St. Mary’s carried the momentum into the third quarter. The deficit, which once stood at 15 points, had come down to a much more manageable four points. However, Trinity’s size advantage started to really burden the Spartans, and the Falcons went on a run of their own.”We knew that this would be a game of runs,” Kmack said. “(When we got up early) we knew that we weren’t going to blow (St. Mary’s) out. They are too good of a team. We knew it was going to come down to who had the last one of those runs.”The Falcons’ size advantage started to impact the game. Golden Okonobah in particular was a force that the Spartans just could not find an answer for. He finished with a game-high 26 points and 13 rebounds.”I think what the game really came down to was (Trinity’s) size advantage,” said Moran. “It just took a toll on us after a while.”Trinity also shot remarkably well from the free-throw line down the stretch. John Lopes in particular had eight free throws, as the Falcons shot 76 percent as a team.The Spartans’ two seniors, Patrick Calnan and Alex Glover, put in some quality minutes at the end of the game to end their varsity career.”(Calnan and Glover) really were great contributors for this team,” said Moran. “They may not have gotten as much playing time as others got on the team. But they were great leaders and were at every practice this year.”