PEABODY — And round one goes to St. Mary’s.
Friday at host Bishop Fenwick, the Spartans’ defense handcuffed the Crusaders (7-4) for much of the night, which ended with St. Mary’s (11-1) pulling away to a 48-43 victory to officially punch its ticket to the Division 3 state tournament.
The game was tight for much of the way, with defense wreaking havoc for both teams.
But this night belonged to 8th-grader Sysy Mcausland-Emmanuel who you might say had a coming-out party, scoring a game-high 15 points (4 rebounds, 2 steals, 2 assists) off the bench and providing a spark when the Spartans needed it most.
With the Spartans down 4-0 midway through the first quarter, Mcausland-Emmanuel, one of four 8th-graders on the Spartans’ roster, drained back-to-back three-pointers, then set up freshman Chaleigh Green (11 points) for an old-fashioned three-point play to give St. Mary’s a lead it would not relinquish.
“Fenwick is always a very good team and this gym is always difficult. Tonight we really didn’t settle in then she came in and gave us some instant offense so we were able to relax a little bit,” St. Mary’s head coach Jeff Newall said. “She’s started five or six games for us and that’s kind of what she’s done this year. She hasn’t scored like she did tonight. She was our primary ball handler to try to get the ball up and” she played with a lot of poise. She did everything tonight and we needed it.”
Fenwick head coach Adam DeBaggis said Mcausland-Emmanuel played a “great” game.
“It’s funny because all the things you talk about in practice that you have to contain No. 11 (Bella Owumi) and then No. 3 comes off the bench and scores 15 points,” he said. “There was that and then the offensive rebounds they got were the difference and that’s 13 points right there. I thought our team played well and passed the ball extremely well, but their whole game is to trap and make you make mistakes but I thought we made very few mistakes. We also missed at least three layups, so that’s another six points. You get those layups and you can set up a press pretty good, but when you miss the layups we were in transition defense. It really came down to such a small amount of plays.”
St. Mary’s led 11-8 after one and stretched the lead to six, 19-13, after an offensive rebound and dish by Lily Norton (2 points, 5 rebounds) to Jillian Roberts (2 points). Fenwick closed to two, 19-17 on back-to-back layups by Boyle (11 points, 7 rebounds). With 30 seconds left, the Spartans held for the last shot – and got it from sophomore Bella Owumi (11 points) to go into the halftime break leading 21-17.
Fenwick came out energized in the third, and tied the score at 21-21 on a power drive by Ceila Neilson (12 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 steals) and a nifty lefty underhanded scoop from Caroline Perry, but that was as close as the Crusaders came the rest of the way.
Trailing 33-25 going into the fourth quarter, Fenwick was still hanging around and down by seven with a little under six minutes to go. Enter Owumi and Green.
Owumi, who needed 19 points going into the game to notch her 1,000th point, had been held in check to that point with only four points, suddenly caught fire scoring the next seven points for St. Mary’s, the middle hoop a shot-clock-beating three from the corner to give the Spartans its largest lead of the game, 40-30. After Fenwick’s Boyle (11 points, 7 rebounds) cut the lead, Owumi picked the Crusaders’ pocket under the Spartans’ hoop and laid it in to make it a 10-point game at 42-32 with two to play.
After that, it was all Green, who scored the Spartans’ final six points over the last minute and a half to put the game in the win column.
“Charleigh asserted herself at both ends of the court and made herself available late in the game in and around the hoop and I thought she did a pretty good job of banging with Caitlin (Boyle) tonight,” Newhall said. “She’s been a little bit up and down but again, we have some young kids and you just know what, night to night, you’re going to get but no question Sysy and Charleigh were probably the difference tonight.”
Reese Matela (5 points) and Gabi Lorenzini (3 points) also scored for the Spartans.
DeBaggis had high praise for Neilson, Reese Spurchise (3 points), and Sienna Mancinelli (7 points, 5 rebounds)
“She’s our toughest kid for sure,” he said. “She plays so hard she just runs out of gas every now and then and I think she ran out of gas tonight. It’s hard to take her out and we try to call timeouts to rejuvenate her. And Reese had a great game tonight and has been playing great lately. Sienna, probably had her biggest minutes all year and has been playing really solid.”
The Spartans’ next game is Monday at home against Wakefield (6:30). Fenwick’s next game is Tuesday at home against Bishop Feehan (6:30) when the Crusaders hope to avenge an early season 60-57 road loss.
