By Michael Letendre
EAST HARTFORD – It was a career night for the front court of the Bristol Central boys basketball team in its demolition of East Hartford on Wednesday.
Between the offensive onslaught of Donovan Clingan and Carson Rivoira, and then an outstanding defensive attack by the trio of Victor Rosa, Damion Glasper and Steve Alseph, Connecticut’s top scholastic program turned away East Hartford in a 70-47 Central Connecticut Conference Interdivisional thrashing on the road from the Bernard C. Dandley Memorial Gymnasium. The Hornets (3-5) never led in the fray but did just enough offensively to hang around.
East Hartford rarely ventured into the paint and once the Rams nabbed a double-figure edge late in the second period, the home team never got close again.
Central (7-0) kept the turnovers to a minimum, fed Clingan and Rivoira when a mismatch materialized, and watched the ball fall in the hoop over a potent offensive attack.
“Minus a couple loose [ball] turnovers when we were trying to go too fast, I thought we did a great job taking care of the ball,” said Central coach Tim Barrette. “And what I told them at half was if we don’t force anything and we’re just patient, we’re going to catch someone on the wrong side of [Clingan] and it’s an automatic dunk. When we’re patient and moved the ball, obviously, that stems from the guards” [and good things happened].
But with the Hornets hanging around, that meant actual fourth quarter minutes for Clingan, allowing the center to put together a game to remember.
He toasted the Hornets for a career-high 40 points to go along with 22 rebounds and five first-half blocks.
And when Rivoira was allowed to shoot from downtown, he made East Hartford pay repeatedly.
Rivoira canned a career-high 18 points – hitting three 3-pointers along the way – but that was just the start.
He just missed a triple double with 12 rebounds and nine assists as Rivoira was simply tremendous.
In fact, the Clingan-Rivoira combination netted 36 of Central’s 38 first-half points over another impressive showing.
And when Rivoira was open, he shot the ball – canning his 3s from the top of the key.
“[He was] one assist away from a triple-double,” beamed Barrette of Rivoira. “The game plan was very obvious. They didn’t know who he was. I told him at halftime, ‘you’re shooting 43-percent from 3. Okay, keep shooting it.’ He got wide open looks as they tried to double-off him. What blows my mind is when you try to double-off him, [Clingan] still gets forty. Sometimes, obviously, I understand what they were trying to do but Carson Rivoira is a heck of a player, a competitor, and an athlete. And he took that personally and 18-12-and-9 later, that’s a pretty good stat-line I’d say.”
The backcourt from Central combined for 10 points, picking its spots offensively while causing all sorts of havoc on the flip side.
Zander Robinson, in his first contest of the season, led East Hartford with 17 points.
“Defensively the guards really had to lock in tonight,” said Barrette of his platoon. “[Robinson], during COVID, you don’t know everyone, and he hadn’t played a game yet. That’s why we had no idea who he was, and he was a heck of a player tonight. He went off early – that was lack of scouting and lack of a game plan versus him. He did a good job, but my guys locked in [on Robinson] after the first quarter.
“When a team makes six or seven shots from 3 in the first half and you’re still up 16, that’s a good sign.”
Rosa (four points), Glasper (two), and Alseph (four) helped get Clingan and Rivoira the ball in the optimum position against a stingy defensive effort by the Hornets.
Tre Blair made a quick appearance in the tail-end of the second quarter but overall, Central’s starting unit – save that brief sub for Rosa – played the first 28 minutes of the contest.
Once Central’s cushion reached thirty (68-38) with 3:52 to play, Jelani Walton, Aaron Brown, Julius Powell, Jayeson VanBeveren and Mason Stokes all got into the game for the Rams.
“We haven’t played a full game, truthfully, since December 20” against East Catholic said Barrette. “We’re about to go up to Springfield Central on Friday night so one of the things we’ve talked about, [was that] those guys had taken enough time off, sitting out and letting the younger guys play. Tonight, we wanted to make a concerted effort to make sure we gave our guys their minutes. And really, East Hartford didn’t let us pull away until late. And after that, obviously, the subs came in.”
After Robinson’s 17, Central did not allow another double-figure scorer.
Clingan flipped in his second three-pointer of the season in Central’s 9-2 game-opening run over the first four minutes or so of the first tilt.
But from there, the Hornets scored five straight points to trim the deficit to 9-7 before Rivoira posted his own 8-3 run – draining two three-pointers along the way – as his second trifecta made it 17-10 with 1:32 remaining in the first frame.
The Rams led 19-13 through one period and even as a 3 from East Hartford’s Chris Lomax (seven points) made it a one-possession game at 19-16 just ten seconds into the second stanza, the home team never made it that close again.
Another Rivoira 3 started a 7-0 burst for Central as Clingan’s first dunk pushed the East Hartford deficit to 10.
Turnovers by both squads kept things relatively close later in the quarter and when the Hornets’ Chris Brown (seven points) dropped in a 3 with 3:10 to play in the half, the Hornets trailed just 28-22.
But the home team didn’t score again for the rest of the second period after that Brown trifecta.
A 10-0 burst saw Central scoop up an 38-22 halftime cushion as Clingan dropped in another dunk, Rosa banked in a hoop, Alseph found both Clingan and Rivoira for buckets and when the 7-foot-1 center tallied one final field goal to end the half, the Rams’ 16-point edge was an imposing tally on the scoreboard.
Central’s first twenty-point edge came minutes into the third period as a steal and lay-up by Alseph saw the visiting aggression nab a 44-24 lead with 5:20 left.
From there, Clingan scored the Rams’ final four baskets – with one of his two dunks causing the entire rim and hoop to shake violently for more than two minutes – as Central scooped up a 52-31 push through three.
A 16-7 opening run from Central in the fourth and final frame saw Alseph post a little fallaway at the hoop, Glasper canned a floater and when Rosa ended the jaunt with a lay-up, the Rams’ edge grew to 68-38 with 3:52 remaining.
Powell’s offensive rebound and put-back ended the scoring for Central as the No. 1 team in Connecticut dropped a tough East Hartford program by 23 points with a trip to Springfield in the cards on Friday in a big-time bout against Springfield Central.
“With COVID, you never know who you’re going to see,” said Barrette. “That’s part of the issue because some guys play one game and don’t play the next. The other thing I’ll tell you is that East Hartford has great athletes. They’re well coached. Javon [Williams] does a great job with them here. You can’t roll the ball out on the road at East Hartford.”
“We knew that they’d give us their all, we withstood that first punch when we were only up two early, and what I told our guys was if you win every quarter, you never lose a basketball game and won every quarter in this game.”
BRISTOL CENTRAL BOYS BASKETBALL
BRISTOL CENTRAL 70, EAST HARTFORD 47
from the Bernard C. Dandley Memorial Gymnasium, East Hartford
Bristol Central (7-0) 19 19 14 18 – 70
East Hartford (3-5) 13 9 9 16 – 47
BRISTOL CENTRAL (70): Victor Rosa 2 0 4, Damion Glasper 1 0 2, Tre Blair 0 0 0, Steven Alseph 2 0 4, Aaron Brown 2 0 4, Jelani Walton 0 0 0, Carson Rivoira 7 1 18, Donovan Clingan 18 3 40, Julius Powell 1 0 2, Jayeson VanBeveren 0 0 0, Mason Stokes 0 0 0. Totals: 31 4 70.
EAST HARTFORD (47): Favour Okeke 1 1 4, Eli Serrano 2 0 5, Zander Robinson 7 1 17, Chris Lomax 3 0 7, Dom Laduca 2 0 5, Jaze James 0 0 0, Alem Indawala 1 0 2, Chris Brown 3 0 7. Totals: 19 2 47.
Three-Point goals: Donovan Clingan (BC), Carson Rivoira (BC) 3.
Records: Bristol Central 7-0 overall; East Hartford 3-5
