LYNN — Sometimes, teams have to wait until the middle of the regular season to face their archrivals, but for Lynn Classical and Lynn English, the holiday season came early.
Classical (1-0) protected home hardwood with a 46-41 win against English (0-1), 46-41.
Midway through the fourth quarter with the score knotted, 35-35, English’s Maria Perry (9 points) drained a corner triple. Then, after a Classical layup by Divine Egbuta, the Bulldogs came right back and drilled another three, this one from Jayleen Novas-Rivera to make it 41-37.
Novas-Rivera (23 points) had it going all night, connecting four times from downtown.
“She’s a great player,” said second-year English coach Sydney Brennan. “I knew last year when she was a sophomore, she was going to be a great player and I think we’re just working on her building her confidence to shoot those shots because they go in. In practice, getting her to shoot, getting her to be confident, bringing the ball up, I think she has a really bright future and I hope this is a start to a really great year for her.”
The Rams didn’t give up. After two free throws from Keisha Perez, coach Tom Sawyer called for his team to press, which led to a turnover-and-score to tie the game (41-41).
When asked what the message was toward the end of the fourth, Sawyer said he told his team to dig in.
“The message was that both teams are tired because we’re still getting our legs – who wants it more?” he said. “We changed up the defense a little bit and the kids executed really well, and we were able to get a couple of turnovers that we needed to put us over the hump.”
Fatigue started to play a factor, as both teams turned the ball over late in the game. That said, a Nevaeh Eth offensive rebound and putback put Classical ahead with 2:34 remaining.
From there, the hosts held English scoreless for the final three minutes. Perez (21 points) and Egbuta (11) paced the Rams offensively.
“Keisha has the ball in her hands 90 percent of the time. That’s important for us because that puts everybody else into their more natural roles. She’s a demon on defense, plays the passing lanes well, and on offense, especially in transition, she’s really hard to stop,” Sawyer said. “Divine is really active on the boards and that’s what we ask, to be really active, and she was tonight.”
As for an early-season entry to the highlight reel, Perez banked in a deep three at the half-time buzzer to put Classical ahead, 28-24.
Both coaches were proud of their girls.
“We obviously would have liked to come out with a win, but I’ve got to give credit to the girls. They fought hard. My starting five got in foul trouble early on and that killed us, but having my returners and having them fight until the end is something that I’m looking for throughout the season,” Brennan said. “This is, kind of, the starting point for us. Keep practicing, keep getting in shape so we can pull out wins when the game is close.”
“First game of the year, but I thought both teams played hard. I couldn’t be prouder for how hard our kids played,” Sawyer said. “We’ve only had, really, four practices.”
Despite the loss, Brennan looks forward to big-game experience paying off.
“I think it’ll help an insane amount… but a lot of growth to do,” she said. “Having last year, as most of them were sophomores, we were able to go together and this year, they know they’re the upperclassmen this year and they have to show up every day.”
