LYNN — Behind a huge effort from senior Josh Perez, the St. Mary’s boys basketball team notched a 75-64 win over St. John’s Prep Friday night at Tony Conigliaro Gymnasium. Perez scored 30 points — including 14 in the fourth quarter — and grabbed six rebounds in the win.
“Josh has been part of this program for four years now and he’s been a role player for three of them, but we told him this year he was going to need to take a bigger role,” said St. Mary’s coach Dave Brown. “He came out and had an outstanding game. He made some big plays for us at key moments, and his shooting was lights-out. It was a great performance.”
Henri Miraka also had a solid game for St. Mary’s with 15 points and five rebounds. Joe Abate-Walsh had 11 points and eight rebounds, Sammy Batista had seven points and Lee Pacheco had five points and six rebounds.
For the Prep, Rollie Castineyra led the way with 16 points and four rebounds. Jack Perry added 15 points, Aidan Callahan had 13 points and Luke Poirier had 10 points.
“That’s our thing this year, we’re a young team and a team that can have some up-and-down moments,” said Prep coach John Dullea. “There were definitely some positives we can take from the game — we shot the ball well at times and played good defense — but we also had a lot of foul trouble as well. It was just an inconsistent effort from us.”
The game started off as a truly even matchup, with the two teams battling to a 9-9 tie through the first four minutes of play. The Prep got hot from 3-point range midway through the quarter, getting buckets from Castineyra, Poirier and Perry to grab the lead. St. Mary’s had a small rally near the end of the quarter, but St. John’s was able to take a 20-18 lead into the second.
The two teams continued their tight battle into the second quarter, with St. John’s holding a slim lead for the majority of the period. Perez almost single-handedly kept the Spartans in the game during the quarter, scoring eight points and pulling down a number of rebounds to keep the Eagles from going on an extended run.
But the St. John’s defense also forced the Spartans to take a lot of tough shots. Callahan and Perry continued to play well for the Eagles on the offensive end as well, and the Prep was able to go into the break with a 39-37 lead.
Miraka got things started off on a positive note for St. Mary’s in the second half, notching an and-one to put the Spartans ahead 40-39. The two teams battled back and forth for the next several minutes before Miraka got going again. A couple of clutch baskets and four made free throws by Miraka helped the Spartans stretch their lead to nine points (53-42) with just over three minutes to play in the third. But the Prep didn’t back down, and behind some big plays from Callahan, Castineyra and Michael Nabbout (six points), the Eagles rallied back to make it a 2-point game — 53-51 — going into the fourth quarter.
The Prep rode that momentum right into the start of the fourth when Perry knocked down a 3-pointer to give the Eagles a 54-53 lead. But the critical part of the game came a few minutes later.
With the two teams tied 56-56 with just over six minutes to play, Perez started to take over. After knocking down two big 3-pointers and grabbing a few key rebounds, Perez pushed the Spartans to a 63-56 lead with five minutes left. St. John’s was able to close the deficit to just three points, but Perez, Abate-Walsh and Miraka continued to come up with big plays to keep the Spartans in the lead. After a few final free throws, St. Mary’s walked away with the victory.
Next up for St. John’s (2-1) is a game against North Andover next Friday (5:30) in the Commonwealth Motors Christmas Classic.
St. Mary’s (3-0) will host Catholic Central League foe Arlington Catholic on Monday (7).
“Arlington Catholic is a very good Division 3 program and a tough conference opponent,” said Brown. “It’s a big game before the Christmas tournament next week, so we just want to take care of business and go into the holiday with some momentum.”
