St. Mary’s wins Boverini girls’ title

LYNN – The St. Mary’s girls’ basketball team is still, for all intents and purposes, a work in progress.
But judging by how dominant the Spartans have been so far this season, when they do finally get everything to mesh it could be a long season for their opponents.
A very gritty Lynn Classical team pushed the Spartans for a half Saturday in the championship game of the Walter J. Boverini Tournament at Lynn Tech before putting the hammer down in the final 16 minutes on their way to a 62-33 win.
St. Mary’s outscored the Rams, 31-13, in the second half and, led by 17 points from tournament MVP Marnelle Garraud, cruised to their 15th win in a row dating back to last season.
?We were able to control the pace for a lot of the game,” St. Mary’s coach Jeff Newhall said. “But Classical played hard and stayed in the game. We played much better defense in the second half.”
The Rams were in the game until late in the third quarter when the combination of cold shooting and the suffocating St. Mary’s defense proved to be their undoing. The Rams went nearly 10 minutes without scoring as the Spartans ripped off 16 straight points to blow the game wide open.
Despite the loss, Classical coach Tom Sawyer was happy with the effort he got from his team.
?I thought that we competed very well,” Sawyer said. “There were times that we executed very well but there were also times that we didn’t execute well at all. And that’s a credit to (St. Mary’s).”
St. Mary’s (6-0) looked like it was ready to run the Rams (2-3) right out of the gym at the start as it ripped off 12 of the game’s first 14 points to lead by 10, thanks to Garraud and Sophia Holmes’ efforts.
The Rams, however, stuck with their game plan. And thanks to some timely steals and buckets they chipped into the lead. Classical got the lead down to 16-9 before Garraud drove to the basket and converted the ensuing free throw.
She added another free throw to finish the opening quarter with 13 points as the Spartans led 20-11 after one.
?Marnelle really did play an excellent game,” Newhall said.
The Rams cut the lead to six twice early in the second quarter but couldn’t get any closer, thanks to the inside play of Temi Falayi and the slashing drives of Gianna Moschella. Their dominance, along with tough defense, helped the Spartans open up a 31-20 lead at the break.
?We got a lot of solid contributions from everyone up and down the lineup,” Newhall said.
St. Mary’s looked like it was finally going to open up some breathing room when Falayi hit three straight shots to begin the third quarter as the lead ballooned to 38-20.
The Rams wouldn’t go away as they cut the lead to 42-30 on Jaida Santos’ shot with just over 2:00 left in the third. It was the only field goal Classical would hit over the next nine minutes.
St. Mary’s scored the final seven points of the third to open the lead to 49-30. They then tacked on nine more to start the fourth before Christina Behen finally ended Classical’s scoring drought with just under three minutes to go. But the damage had been done and the Spartans were on their way to a fourth Boverini title in six seasons.
?This was the first chance these kids had to make a mark on this team by winning this game,” Newhall said.
In the consolation game, Lynn English (1-4) gave first-year coach Rachael Bradley her first win thanks to a dominating 54-14 victory over Lynn Tech (1-4).
Regina Ngaleu and Waleska Muriel led the Bulldogs with nine points each. Dorothy Ezemba chipped in eight for English. The Tigers got six points from Jamila Constantine.
?We really needed this one,” Bradley said. “This was the first game where we came out and played well from the start.”The Bulldogs were in control most of the way as they led 15-5 after one and 32-6 at halftime.