LYNN — Just 0.7 miles and a three-minute car ride (with traffic) separate St. Mary’s and Lynn Tech, but elbows and loose balls later between undefeated girls basketball teams, respect was a two-way street.
In an 80-18 final, the Spartans captured their eighth regular season win in as many tries, as well as the Walter J. Boverini girls championship.
“There’s a number of things you can win in a year, so let’s go win as many things as we can,” said St. Mary’s coach and Athletic Director Jeff Newhall. “It’s good to come out and play well.”
But Newhall jumped at the chance to talk about the Tigers and head coach Kaitlyn Wechsler. In his opinion, it’s Tech’s best group in a decade.
“We haven’t played them in a couple of years, but, to me, the kids and coaches deserve a lot of credit. They’ve got some players [and] a coach who’s really been patient,” he said. “I read her quotes in the paper. She was looking forward to the opportunity to play against a good basketball team. When you have that mentality, as opposed to, ‘Why are we playing them?’ it just changes the whole mindset of the team.”
Wechsler returned the favor, relishing in the challenge – even if that challenge won the Division 3 title last season.
“We knew they were good, and we knew we were going to take our experiences from this,” she said. “Now, when we play against teams in our conference, we should be good to go.”
The two-sport coach (girls volleyball) added, “It’s great to be a part of something like this.”
“It’s such a nice thing for the city to have everyone together,” Wechsler said. “Girls competing against girls that they’ve competed against for a while.”
Of those girls, a certain one shined the most. Freshman Bella Owumi (offers from Boston College and URI) of the Spartans registered 20 points and 17 rebounds, earning her Most Valuable Player honors.
“I just think she plays the game at a different level than most kids,” Newhall said. “Her speed, her elevation, and her physicality. Then, most importantly, the motor she plays with. She really doesn’t get tired. For someone who’s driving the ball and rebounding the ball, she’s the first one back on defense.”
St. Mary’s AJ Hyacinthe (12 points), Reese Matela (12), Sky Watson (11), and Jill Roberts (9) came to play, too.
For the Tigers, Amy Huynh buried one from downtown, Aliyah Volquez impressed with two jumpers in the fourth quarter, Allison Morales connected on a circus shot from beneath the basket, and Engelyz Bingham found her hot hand in the second half.
“She (Bingham) starts everything for us on defense, but we do want her to be aggressive and look to shoot on offense – and she did in the second half,” Wechsler said. “Shots started to fall for her and I’m happy. She works so hard and deserves it.”
Despite being happy with her group’s half-court defense, Wechsler admitted there was work to do on the other end.
“We just need to be a little more aggressive to score,” she said. “We were passing the ball around and dribbling a little too much – not really with a purpose.”
The never-satisfied trait must run in the city. The Spartans played well, but not perfectly, according to Newhall.
“Just because you won, doesn’t mean you played great,” he said. “It’s really, for us, working every day to get better. That way, we’re ready to go when we get into March. That’s where we’re at right now.”
Despite large deficits (29-3 after one; 49-3 at halftime), Tech looked to make the most of timeouts and end-of-quarter breaks.
“We put together a checklist of things we wanted to work on for ourselves,” Wechsler said. “We knew what they were going to bring to the table. We looked at our checklist and said, ‘Are we meeting these?’”
