Spartan boys hoop squad tops Vikings to advance

LYNN – The St. Mary’s boys basketball team jumped out to a 13-0 lead and never looked back. The defending champion Spartans (13-8) eliminated the Winthrop Vikings (6-13), 63-46, in the first round of the MIAA Division 4 North tournament at Conigliaro Gymnasium on Thursday.Senior captain Matt Manning led St. Mary’s with 20 points, including six of the first 13 points. Tommy Deveau added 15 points for the Spartans.”We tried to get the ball inside early,” said St. Mary’s head coach Kevin Moran.The first quarter ended with the Spartans holding a 15-2 advantage as the Spartans were controlling the paint.In the second quarter, Winthrop began to find a rhythm on the offensive end. The Vikings sliced their deficit to 19-10 on a Jeff Laguerre three-pointer from the left corner. At one point, Winthrop found itself down 21-13 before St. Mary’s scored the next seven points late in the first half. St. Mary’s scored on an unconventional three-point play. Then Deveau fed Luc Zikianda on a transition layup.”We knew they were going to make a run on us,” said Moran. “It was just how we responded to their run.”Josh Babb poured in 26 of his 27 points in the second half for the Vikings. Babb was able to score off steals in the backcourt as well as dribble drives on the Spartans’ zone defense. He kept Winthrop in the game, but the Vikings were unable to pull closer than 12 points in the second half.”We’ve always struggled with our movement in our zone defense,” said Moran. “If we move our bodies and with our length, we can at least disrupt things. I think Babb went through us about five or six times.”Moran singled out Manning, Deveau, and Kyle DiFilippo for their size, and crediting that as a disruptive factor over the Vikings guards. There were some occasions in the third quarter when St. Mary’s blocked Winthrop’s shots and that led to baskets in the open court for the Spartans.Winthrop tried to slow down St. Mary’s in the second half by increasing its pressure defense with Babb harassing the St. Mary’s guards, but St. Mary’s refused to let the Vikings threaten it.”I think Manning was a stabilizing force for us tonight,” said Moran.With 6:51 left in the game, Winthrop was behind 46-34, but it was the closest the Vikings would get for the rest of the game. St. Mary’s got the lead back to 18 points at 56-38 with just under four minutes left.St. Mary’s moves on to play Pope John in the quarterfinals on Saturday afternoon (at Pope John, 3).