LYNN — There was much to celebrate Friday night at the Tony Conigliaro Gym. St. Mary’s girls basketball coach and Athletic Director Jeff Newhall coached his first game on the newly-named Newhall Court to open the Spartans’ season.
Newhall’s friends, family, and members of the St. Mary’s community were in attendance for the opener against Andover. And for Newhall, there was no better way to kick things off than a 73-37 win on the new hardwood.
“On opening night, you feel good about the way things have gone, but until the ball goes up, you just don’t know. I thought our energy was great, our defense set the tone of the game, and we got the pace we wanted really early,” he said. “We got open shots for the people we wanted and I thought, overall, for night one against a high-quality program, it went really well.”
Defense was the difference as the Spartans opened the game on a 17-0 run. Andover didn’t score its first points until the bottom three minutes of the first.
When asked about the defense, Newhall praised his players for having active hands and disrupting the passing lanes.
“I thought we were rotating correctly. We got a ton of deflections. I like the way we were stealing the ball and turning it into offense immediately,” Newhall said. “We ran the floor really well, so a lot of positive things.”
St. Mary’s led, 42-18, by halftime with Reese Matela (12 points, 10 rebounds) leading all scorers with 10 points.
Come the second half, Bella Owumi (20 points) took over, scoring eight of St. Mary’s first 10 points out of the lockerroom.
After the game, Newhall said his team is going to need to hit 3-pointers to open up the rest of the offense.
“Or else, they’re just going to pack it in. We have plenty of kids who can shoot. Bella is a really good shooter. I know she didn’t make any [3-pointers] tonight, but I’m not concerned about that,” Newhall said. “We have enough shooters on this team to open up the offense.”
