MARBLEHEAD — There were some state champions on the benches during Thursday’s Marblehead-Salem boys basketball game.
Magicians’ coach Mike Giardi and Salem’s Tom Doyle were teammates on Salem’s 1990 state championship team. They went head to head once again, with Doyle’s Witches getting the better of Marblehead, 54-49.
Marblehead trailed, 38-33, going into the fourth quarter, but the deficit didn’t last long as senior guard Matthew Sherf made his presence felt. Sherf buried a corner three before a pair of free throws to tie the game just 30 seconds into the quarter.
Sherf scored seven of his 10 points in the fourth.
“I got him on the bench a little bit. They were getting on him and being physical with him, so I told him he has to be strong with the ball and be ready to play, because if he’s not, we’re going to be in a lot of trouble,” Giardi said. “He did a great job of responding.”
The game was back and forth with both sides playing strong defense, thus leading to tough shots.
But Salem went on a 5-0 run (46-42) midway through the quarter for some breathing room. With less than a minute remaining in a two-possession game, the Magicians needed to foul three times to get Salem into the bonus.
Recently, the National Federation of State High School Associations changed a rule and eliminated 1-and-1 free throws, meaning once a team is in the bonus, it automatically gets two free throws instead of earning the second one.
With the rule change, you could say it’s harder for teams to come back.
“Especially because we haven’t fouled,” Giardi said. “We had to commit three fouls to get into the bonus in the end. We did a good job and actually got them to miss in the end. We had a chance to cut it to a two-point game and put pressure on them, but couldn’t quite get it. Our guys played really hard. We just need to get over the hump.”
After a missed shot, Cameron Quigley got the offensive rebound and was fouled, but only converted one free throw to make it 52-49 with 8.9 seconds remaining.
Salem inbounded the ball and made both free throws to walk out with a 54-49 win.
Despite the loss, Giardi liked what he saw from his team after a tough stretch of games lately.
“The last two games, we got our butts kicked, to be honest. Beverly and Masco really shoved us. We had some guys down and injured and we started to feel bad for ourselves, but you can’t feel bad. Tonight, we put it on them. We had to step up the pace and intensity and we started to do that,” Giardi said. “We played really good defense. We just had a couple of breakdowns – both offensively and defensively – and in a five-point game, unfortunately, that’s one possession. If you get a stop on defense and a score on offense, that could be the difference.”
Marblehead looks for a win Monday when it travels to Malden for a 6 p.m. showdown.
“We’ve lost three in a row now, so we have to go again and pick it up,” Giardi said.
