WAKEFIELD — With the top seed in the Division 3 North state tournament, the St. Mary’s boys basketball team set its sights on a state championship run. Dracut had other plans.
The No. 12 Middies shocked the Spartans, coming from behind twice in a 63-59 win to end St. Mary’s season in the sectional semifinal Wednesday night at Wakefield High’s Charbonneau Field House.
“It was an unbelievable season,” St. Mary’s coach Dave Brown said. “But obviously a disappointing ending. At St. Mary’s they hold a high standard of winning state championships. At the end of the day we didn’t accomplish what we set out to accomplish. This is a tough one to swallow. It’s heartbreaking.”
Ademide Badmus put up a double-double and led all scorers with 20 points and 12 rebounds. Joseph Abate-Walsh scored 11 points with eight rebounds while Jalen Echevarria added 12 points and five rebounds.
“They took Jalen away from us,” Brown said. “It was my mistake not trying to force it to Jalen and see if we could try to get something open for him. I thought we had other players who can step up and make shots, but we just didn’t make shots tonight.
“We knew going into the game we had certain things we were going to try to run against their defense,” Brown said. “We didn’t execute well with it. We got shots when we needed them we just couldn’t knock them down.”
St. Mary’s got off to a solid start on both sides of the court. Abate-Walsh started with a 3-pointer and Echevarria scored in transition to put St. Mary’s ahead 5-0. Adrian Torres helped get Dracut on the board with a 3-pointer but Echevarria answered with a three of his own to extend the Spartans lead to 16-8 after the first quarter.
Marcus Brunson-Perez kept the Spartans hot with a 3-pointer to start the second quarter and St. Mary’s pushed its lead to 25-15.
Things went wrong for the Spartans midway through the second. William Peters and Torres hit back-to-back 3-pointers to cut the St. Mary’s lead to five. The Spartans ran into more trouble from there, with five straight turnovers helping the Middies claw back into the game. Torres hit another 3-pointer to give Dracut its first lead of the game at 28-26.
“Dracut started playing,” Brown said. “We started playing bad and and they got a little bit of confidence from that run. We couldn’t make any shots tonight.”
Badmus came through for St. Mary’s in the final minutes of the first half. The sophomore grabbed three rebounds and scored eight late points to help the Spartans salvage a 34-33 lead going into the break.
The Spartans were able get back up by five points a few minutes into the third quarter. Badmus capped the run by converting an and-one to put St. Mary’s ahead 43-38. But, again, Dracut climbed back in. Cameron McCullough led the Middies with five third-quarter points to help put Dracut ahead 48-47.
The Middies stayed hot, scoring on four straight possessions to start the fourth quarter and extend their lead to 55-50. St. Mary’s cut the Dracut lead to two in the final minutes of the game and Sammy Batista came off the bench to hit a huge 3-pointer with 1:01 remaining and put the Spartans ahead 59-58.
But Dracut’s Mitchell Monette responded on the next possession with a three of his own to put the Middies back out front with 17 seconds to go. Jean Santiago closed the game for the Middies, stealing possession from Echevarria and hitting two free throws to seal the game for Dracut at 63-59.
St. Mary’s ends the season at 21-3.
“It was just heartbreaking,” Brown said. “Defensively we had a few breakdowns and they knocked down some shots. They gained confidence and they made their free throws. We came down and missed. It was just a heartbreaking loss.
“It’s a tough ending for the seniors,” Brown added. “I lose my nephew (Echevarria) who had an unbelievable career. He had 98 career wins, over 1,500 points. It’s just heartbreaking for it to end in this type of game.”
