LYNN — The St. Mary’s girls basketball team is headed back to the TD Garden this year, as the No. 2 Spartans knocked off No. 7 Watertown by a score of 60-39 in a Division 3 quarterfinal game at Paul F. Cavanagh Field House Thursday night.
“It was a great game and Watertown gave us some real headaches early on,” said St. Mary’s coach Jeff Newhall. “It took a little while for us to settle down — and how funny is it that it was a seventh-grader who ended up settling us down — and we were able to pull away from there.”
It was also a special night for Spartans junior Yirsy Queliz, one of the few members of the Spartans roster who was on the team the last time St. Mary’s played at the garden right before the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. After knocking down a deep 3-pointer with 1:31 left to go in the third quarter, Queliz became the latest in program history to score her 1,000th career point.
“She’s such a special player, and the 1,000 points is great but she’s so much more than that for us,” said Newhall. “She can do so many things out there on the floor for us, from scoring to rebounding to playing incredible defense on the other team’s best player, to coming down the stretch and handling the ball all the way to the wind. She just does everything for us out there.”
But Queliz wasn’t the leading scorer for the Spartans — that honor was reserved for seventh-grader Bella Owumi. The 13-year-old, who has played significant minutes for the Spartans all season long, led the way with 21 points and seven rebounds while also playing strong defense and adding a few assists on the side as well.
“Even though she’s in seventh grade, she’s already played in a lot of big games this year and she just keeps getting better and better,” said Newhall. “She’s gone up against some pretty intense competition all year long, guarded scholarship players and she’s come away a better player for it. This was probably her best performance of the season so far.”
The two teams got off to a back-and-forth start, and it looked for a long time like it was going to be a defensive slog the entire way. St. Mary’s was able to scratch out a 10-5 lead by the end of the first quarter, and eventually the Spartans were able to stretch that lead to as many as 13 points before taking a 29-16 lead into the halftime break.
The third quarter is where the Spartans were able to stretch things out, as Queliz, Morgen and Owumi all hit big shots — including Queliz’s 1,000th point — to help St Mary’s push ahead by as many as 26 points.
That trend continued into the fourth quarter, as the Spartans were able to stay more than an arm’s length ahead the rest of the way to seal the win.
St. Mary’s (23-3) will now move on to the semifinal round, where the Spartans will take on either No. 3 Norwell or No. 6 Bishop Fenwick for a chance to play in the Division 3 state championship game. The date and time of the game are yet to be determined.
“There are only four teams left in the state at this point, so you know no matter who you play you’re going to get a tough test,” said Newhall. “We’ve played Fenwick twice this year and know that they’re a great team, and we’ve also seen Norwell play and know that they have a ton of (talent) as well. Every round we’ve played in, things have gotten tougher and tougher, and we know that’s not going to stop now.”
