Prep’s defense suffocates Billerica

DANVERS – When you hold your opponent without a field goal for nearly nine minutes, it’s usually a sign you’re going to win.So it went for the top-seeded St. John’s Prep basketball team, which survived an early surge from 16th-ranked Billerica, but pulled away with an 80-59 victory in a Div. 1 North first round tournament game, Friday night, at St. John’s Prep.Click here for more photosThe Eagles (20-1) play next at home on Sunday (5) against 8th-seeded Lincoln-Sudbury (18-3) and seven-footer John Swords, in a quarterfinal.”They’ve got some good shooters, and (Swords) is a legitimate seven-footer,” St. John’s Prep coach Sean Connolly said. “We’ve got to play our best game to beat them.”Whether it was attributable to their week-long layoff or not, the Eagles started out slowly against Billerica (11-11), and led by just one (20-19) when Billerica’s Patrick Bradanese hit a back-door layup with 5:49 to go in the second quarter.Just as the Billerica contingent of the crowd started to get into it, St. John’s defense took over, holding the visitors without a field goal for the rest of the half, and then 3:05 into the third quarter, when Bradanese made a 3-pointer from the top of the key to make the score 44-27.”We didn’t come out of the gate well, but we played good defense in the second quarter,” Connolly said. “We knew Billerica was going to be a very competitive team, and they hung in there. Give them a lot of credit.”Pat Connaughton and Stephen Haladyna led the Eagles with 22 points each, while Michael Carbone added 16, all but three of which came in the first half when St. John’s was stuggling offensively.”Those three are battle-tested,” Connolly said. “They’ve been in the tournament, and they played in (Boston Garden) last year.”For Billerica, Connor Elmore scored 19 points, while Bradanese added 15 and Ryan Donahoe contributed 12. Billerica played without junior forward Pedro Trindade, who scored 13 points and grabbed seven rebounds before injuring his shoulder in the third quarter of his team’s first round win over Boston Latin on Tuesday.The Eagles closed the first half on a 19-3 run that included eight points from Haladyna, who advanced the lead to 20 (44-24) for the first time when he made a layup off a nice assist from Freddy Shove early in the third quarter. Billerica got its deficit down to 10 with a quick run, but the Eagles answered with nine straight points – seven from Connaughton – to take a 55-37 lead after three quarters.St. John’s opened the fourth period on a 14-2 run that included a phenomenal baseline drive by Connaughton that became a 3-point play, and the lead peaked at 71-42 when Haladyna converted a feed from Connaughton with just under five minutes left.”It’s always good to have a top player like (Connaughton) on the floor because he can create offense,” Connolly said. “He’s come up with some big plays for us.”