PHOTO BY BOB ROCHE
Olivia Nazaire drives past Coyle-Cassidy’s Jenna Piatelli for a basket during Sunday’s Spartan Classic.
By SCOT COOPER
LYNN — If you’re going to host a tournament you might as well win it.
Junior Olivia Nazaire made sure her St. Mary’s Spartans reached the finals of the Spartan Classic, pushing her team past Coyle-Cassidy Sunday night 46-35.
Spartans coach Jeff Newhall said that Nazaire’s 23 points were big for his team, but a lot of other players contributed too.
“It’s our tournament, we’re very proud of it, and we’re certainly in it to win it,” Newhall said. “Olivia did a great job, our whole forward line did a great job on their bigs, getting them all to foul out by the fourth quarter.”
“Coyle-Cassidy (15-3) has an excellent team, they have two losses to Bishop Feehan, a top team in the state, so to beat them is a nice accomplishment for our team,” Newhall said. “And it was a team effort tonight certainly.”
Newhall said that after a tough game with Bishop Fenwick Friday, it was good to get a boost of energy by scoring first against the Warriors. Nazaire made a free throw and a bucket, and the Spartans were ahead early on, 4-3.
The Warriors battled back and took a 9-8 lead behind buckets by their high scorer, sophomore Rachael Johnson. St. Mary’s was cold to start the second quarter, but eventually heated up to take a 21-15 lead into the locker room at halftime. Amanda Idusuyi helped push St. Mary’s back on top with five points in the second quarter to go with Nazaire’s offense.
Coyle-Cassidy wouldn’t go away in the third quarter and Johnson had help from Kaylee Haynes, and the Warriors climbed all the way back to take a two-point lead after three quarters, 30-28.
Nazaire came right out fast in the fourth, scoring six straight points to put her team on top for good, 34-30, with 7:20 left in the fourth quarter. The junior from Peabody said that her team had to put the hammer down once they got the lead back in the fourth quarter.
“We told everyone to push it and keep pushing it and pushing it in the fourth quarter,” Nazaire said. “Once we got the lead we wanted to just keep pushing them back, and we did because so many girls on the team did a great job for us.”
Coyle-Cassidy got as close as 42-35 on a three pointer by Abbie Kurtzer, but Mia Nowicki and Nazaire sank free throws to ice the 11-point win.
Warriors’ coach Michael O’Brien said it was tough to keep up with the Spartans after all his bigs fouled out by the fourth quarter.
“We’re a young tram, no seniors, we got into foul trouble, we lost some key players and couldn’t recover,” O’Brien said. “We played hard, St. Mary’s is a very good team, we’re 15-3 and we’ll take where we are now and go forward from there.”
The Spartans will be looking for a fifth straight Spartan Classic title Monday night at 7 p.m. against Rockland. The Bulldogs beat Latin Academy to earn a spot in the title game with St. Mary’s.
Nazaire led all scorers with 23 points; Johnson was high scorer for the Warriors with 15. For the winners, Temi Felayi chipped in with eight points, Mia Nowicki had 5, Idusuyi had five, Gabriela Torres had three and Ashley Sullivan hit a free throw.
Before the game seniors Mia Nowicki, Idusuyi Felayi and their parents were honored on Senior Night.
