LYNN — With a solid 45-28 win over cross-town rival English, the Classical girls basketball team notched its 10th win of the season to become one of the earliest teams to qualify for the state tournament.
“It feels good to qualify, it was one of our goals at the beginning of the year,” said Classical coach Tom Sawyer. “But now, it’s all about playing for seeding. We’d like to play tournament games at home, and we still have a lot of work to do to get to that point.”
Irianis Delgado scored 11 points and grabbed eight rebounds to lead the way for the Rams, while Jean Gupton had 11 points and five rebounds. Jeylly Medrano had seven points, Tyarah Horton had six points and four rebounds and Jazzmine Masse and Chloe Kebreau put up four points and two rebounds apiece.
English was led by Kimaniy Dorsey, who had 10 points on the night. Ely Guity added seven points, while Sheyla Manon had four points and five rebounds.
“We just didn’t play with enough effort to win a basketball game tonight,” said English coach Mackenzie Charles. “We made a lot of mistakes out there, a lot of turnovers, and we just need to get better overall.”
It was an offensive struggle for both teams in the first quarter. Both teams were playing solid defense throughout, but in the end many shots simply clanged off the rim. Classical did a good job forcing turnovers with its full-court press and its zone defense in the half court. At the end of the first quarter the Rams held onto a 6-2 lead.
The second quarter saw more scoring from both teams. Guity came off the bench to spark the Bulldogs with six points, while Medrano did the same for Classical with her four points. Delgado also provided a spark with seven first-half rebounds. The Rams began to stretch out a bit of a lead at the end of the half, as Gupton hit a shot with five seconds left to give Classical its biggest lead of the night at six points. But Tommi Hill responded right away with a buzzer-beating three to make the score 18-15 Classical at the half.
But the third quarter changed everything. Classical outscored the Bulldogs 19-2 in the quarter, getting 17 of those 19 points from just two players. Gupton filled up the stat sheet in the quarter, putting up nine points, two rebounds and three steals. Delgado was the other contributor, notching eight points and two rebounds in the frame. Behind their stellar play, the Rams stretched the lead to 20 points by the end of the third.
“They both played really hard the whole game, and it showed out there,” Sawyer said of Gupton and Delgado. “They fought hard on the boards and in the paint, and that’s what we needed tonight.”
While English was able to put together a small run in the fourth quarter, it wasn’t enough to overcome the deficit.
“We had a good little run there at the end, but we need to be able to do that throughout the game,” Charles said. “We’ve just got to get back to practice and keep working.”
The Bulldogs (4-5) will try to get back to .500 when they take on Peabody on Friday.
Classical (10-1) will have to get ready for one of its toughest tests of the year, as the Rams take on Revere on Friday.
