BURLINGTON — The St. Mary’s boys basketball team got off to a bit of a slow start Wednesday night, but a big second quarter was enough to lift the No. 1 Spartans to a 76-57 victory over No. 5 Hamilton-Wenham in the Division 3 North semifinal at Burlington High. St. Mary’s outscored the Generals 22-6 in the second quarter and never trailed from that point forward.
“(Hamilton-Wenham) came out in a zone and we really wanted to speed them up, but we just weren’t able to hit shots early in the game,” said St. Mary’s coach Dave Brown. “But once we were able to settle things down offensively and make some stops on the defensive end, we were able to right the ship and earn the win.”
Joe Abate-Walsh led the way for St. Mary’s with 19 points and four rebounds, while Sammy Batista was right behind with 17 points. Henri Miraka added 14 points and eight rebounds, while David Brown (six points, three rebounds), Ali Barry (six points, two rebounds), Lee Pacheco (four points, 11 rebounds) and Josh Perez (four points, three rebounds). In total, all nine players who saw the floor for St. Mary’s scored at least one basket in the win.
“I told the guys that we’d probably have to go nine deep (Wednesday) because we were really going to try to wear down Hamilton-Wenham,” Brown said. “We know that on any given night, one of our top seven guys can lead us in scoring.”
The Spartans were a bit shaky to open up the game, while Hamilton-Wenham came out with the fire one would expect from any underdog team. The two teams battled back and forth through two ties and five lead changes throughout the quarter. St. Mary’s fell behind by as many as five points in the first, but a late rally tied things back up at 16-16. After Batista knocked down a buzzer-beating jumper, the Spartans took an 18-16 lead into the second.
By the second quarter, St. Mary’s had settled into more of a rhythm. The Spartans went on a 7-0 run to open the quarter, eventually extending their lead to 15 points. By the time the halftime buzzer sounded, St. Mary’s held a 40-22 lead.
“Once we were able to get that shot from Sammy to end the first quarter, I think we took that momentum and used it well,” said Brown. “We gained a little bit more confidence after we started hitting some shots, and we were able to ride that momentum from there.”
The second half was much of the same, with the Spartans holding Hamilton-Wenham at an arm’s length for the remainder of the game. The Generals would go on spotty runs that cut the deficit to as little as 12 points, but St. Mary’s wouldn’t allow them to get any closer.
St. Mary’s (23-2) will now move on to the Division 3 North final against No. 11 Weston, who upset No. 2 Amesbury in the other semifinal game.
“We know that Weston is a good team, they play in the Dual County League and they usually play up to higher division opponents,” Brown said. “They’ve also got a big kid in the middle who’s 6-foot-10, so we know we’ll have to work on our presence in the paint. We’ll look at the film and get to work, and we’ll be ready for Saturday.”
St. Mary’s and Weston will tip off Saturday afternoon (12:15) at Tsongas Center in Lowell.
