LYNN — Midway through the first quarter, the Classical boys basketball team was having its way with Revere.
Then, after a timeout, Revere spent the remainder of the game with the shoe on the other foot.
It all added up to a 48-45 victory over the Rams at the Classical gym.
Six minutes into the game, Classical had an 11-3 lead and showed no signs of slowing down.
“We tried to press them,” said Revere coach David Leary. “But they were a little too athletic for us. So we had to get into a halfcourt game.”
And that, said Classical coach Marvin Avery, didn’t exactly play into his team’s strengths. Avery likes to play uptempo ball and substitutes freely to keep his players fresh. The Rams were stifled by Revere’s matchup 2-3 zone, and settled for outside shots far too often.
“They found our weakness,” Avery said. “Once they went into that zone, we relied way too much on outside shots.”
Revere also had the benefit of a hot shooter — something that eluded the Rams. Domenic Boudureau, a 5-foot-10-inch junior, scored 20 points for the Patriots on a variety of shots, both from a distance and from up close. He was the only one of the Patriots who scored in double figures.
Classical did get a 12-point effort from Jadden Gonzalez and 11 points from Marquese Avery. Otherwise, no one scored more than seven.
Entering the fourth quarter, Revere was up by seven (39-32) and looked to be in good shape. Then, said Leary, things went helter-skelter for a few minutes. And in that time, Classical scored eight straight points (threes by Gonzalez and Avery along with Avery’s two free throws — the only visit to the line by the Rams).
But it was Boudreau to the rescue with 4:19 to go, with a three-pointer — one of four he scored in the game. The teams went almost two full minutes without scoring before Ramadan Barry (9 points) hit two foul shots to make the score 44-40.
Avery scored a bucket with 1:50 to go to bring Classical to within two, but Marnza Ghoul (8 points) capped his night off with a layup six seconds later.
Classical worked down the other end for almost the entire time of possession before Gonzalez hit a trey with 1:07 left. Then, Classical’s Matthew Carrillo stole the ball, but Classical couldn’t convert. And when Bondreau hit with 25 seconds left that was the ballgame.
Revere raises its record to 5-3 and will be at English Thursday. Classical is at Medford Thursday (6).
