SALEM — The Marblehead boys basketball team’s state tournament hopes have been hanging on by a thread and Friday night it looked like those hopes might come to an end.
With just 7.7 seconds left in the game, the Magicians trailed host Salem by one with a chance to draw up one final play. The idea was simple; get the ball in the paint to senior forward Adam Zamansky and, while Marblehead didn’t get the look they thought, Zamansky delivered with a floater to lift the Magicians to a 48-47 win.
“We thought Salem would come out in a zone,” Magicians coach Mike Giardi said. “They went man-to-man, we didn’t get organized out of bounds, but we got it right where we wanted in the middle of the floor. We got it to Adam, maybe hoping for contact to get him to the line. He’s been doing a good job getting at the rim but really he’s been struggling this year finishing at the hoop. He did a great job and our guys did a great job.”
The score capped off a great game for Zamansky, who notched a double-double with 12 points and 15 rebounds. Cole Kronberg and Dylan Freddo each scored eight points and Sean McCarthy wasn’t far behind with seven points and four steals. Devin Romain had six points and six rebounds.
After a few lead changes in the first Marblehead grabbed a slight lead and clung to it for most of the night. The Witches tied things up twice in the second quarter, but each time the Magicians responded. Cole Bouchard’s late basket and Feddo’s putback to end the half gave Marblehead a 22-18 lead heading into the break.
McCarthy led a suffocating Marblehead defense out of the break with three quick steals in the third and knocked down a 3-pointer to put Marblehead ahead 30-18.
Marblehead held a double digit lead into the fourth but Salem flipped the script from there. Ethan Doyle (team-high 12 points) and Darlin Santiago Reyes (nine) could not miss from beyond the arc, combining to hit five 3-pointers in the frame. The effort not only got the Witches back into the game, but helped them build a 47-42 lead in the final minutes.
“I think we got a little bit tired,” Giardi said. “We wanted to up the pace and force them into shooting threes fast and early. We did that in the first half and maybe that third quarter, but we weren’t capitalizing on their misses. We talked about how every possession matters. That one at the end of the game was huge but early on we had four or five possessions up 11 points and we could’ve extended it.”
But the Magicians did just enough to cut the hole to one before a timeout to draw up the game-winning play. After Zamanski’s clutch basket, Salem had just over a second to try to pull off a comeback of its own, but William Twadwell batted away a pass to seal the win for Marblehead.
Now the Magicians (8-11) head into the the annual Patton Tournament needing two wins to qualify for the state tournament, starting Monday (7) against host Hamilton-Wenham.
“You hope this gives us a boost,” Giardi said. “Because the last two games we haven’t done a great job. We laid an egg in Gloucester, Beverly beat us up and before that against Danvers we had the same situation at the end of the game with a chance to win it and we didn’t. This time we did and that might be the catapult we need.”
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BOYS BASKETBALL
St. John’s Prep 70, Malden 40
Rollie Castineyra (12 points), Aidan Callahan (11 points) and Matthew Duchemin (10 points) all scored in double figures for the Eagles in the win.
The Prep (8-11) takes on Belmont Sunday afternoon (3:30).
