Basketball: English boys fall, KIPP sweeps

The English boys basketball team knew it would have its hands full against Salem at English Wednesday. Salem lived up to the hype, as the Witches gave the Bulldogs their first loss of the season, 74-69.?I was very impressed how athletic and talented Salem was in person,” English coach Mike Carr said. “When it is state tournament time, Salem will be a very tough out.”English (8-1) got off to a strong start, and led 33-30 at the end of the first half.?We were able to play at our pace in the first half, and I felt pretty good going into halftime,” Carr said.The second half was a different story. Salem slowed down English with its suffocating 3-2 zone defense. The Witches outscored the Bulldogs 22-12 in the third quarter, which proved to be the difference.?Once Salem slowed us down, the game started getting away from us,” Carr said. “Salem is so long at every position that their zone looked like the Syracuse zone in college. Even though we lost, we are going to take a lot of positives out of this game, and will become a better team for it moving forward.”English received strong performances from Johnny Hilaire (17 points) and Eric Rosario (18 points).For Salem (6-1), Bryan Martinez-Rodriguez led the way with a monster performance (22 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists). Salem guards Rashad Keys (19 points, 13 rebounds) and David Kazadi (13 points, 17 rebounds) were solid on both sides of the floor.KIPP 66, Salem Charter 19At Lynn, Danya Smith had a big night with 16 points and eight rebounds. Ricardy Mehu came off the bench and contributed 12 points, six rebounds and 10 steals and Jonathan Mola had six points and nine rebounds. Tayjuan McKenzie had eight points and six rebounds off the bench. KIPP is 3-0.Peabody 68, North Shore 41At Peabody, Brian Onessimo scored a career-high 29 points and helped out with 11 rebounds and five steals. The senior captain was hitting jumpers and getting it done in the paint.?Brian had his best game of the year,” Peabody coach Thad Broughton said.Jared McCarron also had one of his best outings with seven points and six rebounds and Brian Sullivan had five points and eight rebounds.?It was a close game. We were able to knock down some shots and get a little bit of a lead going into the fourth quarter,” Broughton said.Peabody is 3-5.GIRLS BASKETBALLKIPP 70, Salem Academy 10At Lynn, the Panthers (4-2, 3-0) dominated this one with Alex Huffman scoring 18 points before coach Nat Jones went to his bench for the final two quarters. Serena High and Anaidys Uribe each had 10 points and Marie Kamba and Pleilerkay Gaye, six each.?Even though it wasn?t super competitive, I was happy with the way we took care of the ball. We only turned it over once in the first half,” Jones said.