The St. Mary’s boys basketball team has had one item on its to-do list this season, and the Spartans are 32 minutes away from reaching that goal.
Friday night at the Tsongas Center, the No. 1 Spartans will take the court for the final time this season when they take on No. 2 Watertown in the Division 3 state championship game.
It’s been a long time coming for St. Mary’s, which back in the 2019-20 season had its season end in heartbreaking fashion when guard David Brown Jr.’s game-tying 3-pointer rimmed out in a loss to Burke. The next year saw the COVID-19 pandemic cancel the state tournament, meaning that this is the last opportunity at a state title for some of the key players from that ’19-20 team.
“These guys lost in this game two years ago, and they’ve never forgotten that,” St. Mary’s coach Dave Brown said after the Spartans’ semifinal win over Norton Wednesday.
The playoff road to get to this point has been a straight line for the Spartans. After not losing to a single team in Massachusetts during the entire regular season, the Spartans earned the No. 1 seed and a bye in the opening round of the tournament. St. Mary’s started off its run with a 94-60 win over Chelsea in the Round of 32, led by Brown’s incredible career-high 40 points. The next game was just as special, as Ali Barry recorded his 1,000th career point and finished with 27 points to help lift the Spartans to an 88-44 win.
St. Mary’s followed that up with a team victory over Dover-Sherborn in the quarterfinal round, then the Spartans took the trip to Woburn High and picked up a blowout 87-49 win over Norton in the Div. 3 semifinal. David Brown Jr. led the offensive attack with 23 points and five rebounds, while Omri Merryman shot the ball well from the field and finished with 16 points and four rebounds.
Which leads us up to the Div. 3 state title game, where St. Mary’s and Watertown will meet in a winner-take-all game for the second time in the past four years. The last time around, in the 2018 Div. 3 North Final, the Spartans came up short by a score of 44-36.
And this year’s Watertown team won’t be an easy one to top. The Raiders have won each of their four playoff games by at least nine points, with two of those wins coming by at least 14 points.
“The guys on this team weren’t on the squad four years ago when we lost to Watertown, but they were in the middle-school program and I remember looking up into the stands after we lost that game and seeing my son crying in the stands,” said Brown. “Those guys felt that loss, and then a lot of them felt it for themselves two years ago when we came up short. We know Watertown is a great team, (Steve) Harrington is a great coach and they’re going to come with a great game plan. It’s going to be a heck of a game Friday night.”
Tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Tsongas Center in Lowell.
