By Michael Letendre  

BRISTOL – Bristol Central boys basketball standout Jayeson VanBeveren has put together some impressive efforts over the years from the court at Bristol Eastern.

And this time around, his near 20-20 fueled a tremendous effort by Rams, fending off the Lancers by a 59-52 final from the Thomas M. Monahan Gymnasium on Monday evening. 

VanBeveren posted 16 points, a game-high 19 rebounds and blocked four shots while sophomore Carmelo Thompson dropped in 18 points, nine rebounds and six assists as the Rams (6-14) broke a nine-game losing streak just as the postseason is nearly upon the state.

“This is a big one tonight,” said Central coach Tim Barrette. “It gives us a little bit of energy going into this long layoff before we probably play Northwest [Catholic in state tournament play].” 

The game started with Eastern’s Ben D’Amato (six points) ‘winning’ the jump ball and getting it to senior Nate Fries (five points, four rebounds, three steals), playing in his final regular season game, for an uncontested lay-up.

Central was then allowed to reciprocate as injured Central senior Julius Powell received a pass from Tre Blair for an easy bucket.

The game was quickly stopped as Powell left the court for one final time over a nice ovation.

But the Powell bucket led to a sizzling 17-0 run by Central as the visiting aggression led by 14 (17-3) through eight minutes of work. 

“I said to these guys every time I’m here, I have to use two timeouts over the first four minutes,” said Barrette. “We can’t give up looks and we didn’t allow them to score their first field goal I believe until the second quarter. That was humongous.” 

“We were making every look very difficult.”  

Eastern (10-10) missed plenty of layups over the contest, which helped Central maintain its edge throughout first half play.

The Lancers got the Rams to turn the ball over several times but a cold 34-percent shooting clip from the field keep the home team’s scoring a bit staggered. 

“We’re not a full court pressure team for thirty-two minutes but that’s what we needed to do today to claw ourselves back in the game,” said Eastern coach Bunty Ray. “You know, every time I look at the defensive end, I say to myself, ‘all right, we’re giving up baskets’ but that [game] simply came down to offense. We could just not make shots.” 

“We had them too, I’m not taking anything away from Central, but we had open looks, and we had lay-ups that we couldn’t convert on.” 

Central’s Mason Stokes (11 points), who Ray highlighted after the game, put back a miss after Powell exited the game, Joey Pikiell (seven points) canned a 3 and to end the 17-0 jaunt, VanBeveren dropped in two lay-ups to make it 17-2 with 47 seconds left to play in the first. 

“We made some adjustments on offense,” said Barrette. “I’m sure you could see we wanted to take advantage of some of the mismatches we thought we had on offense. We got off to a really good start.” 

Central stayed ahead in the second stanza and off a floater by Pikiell with 3:31 before the half, the squad was still in charge at 23-10. 

“They killed us on the offensive glass,” said Ray of Central. “We just watched them just grab the ball and make putback, after putback, after putback. They didn’t make a whole lot of perimeter shots. Everything was around the basket. So, you do that, that’s a high percentage and we didn’t have any answers. We didn’t offer any resistance.” 

But Eastern started to heat up after being down 13, using a 19-5 burst to recapture the lead early in the third tilt.

Fries started the jaunt with a charity toss, Jordan Chisholm (13 points, three rebounds) added a hoop while Lukas Sward – who played extremely well throughout – made a steal for a hoop, then cashed in on a three-point play and when Zaveyn Tate (five points, three rebounds) drained his second career 3, Central’s cushion was reduced to 25-21 at the half.

After Stokes hit an and-1 to open the third, Eastern went on an 8-0 run to seize the lead.

Tate found Fries for a basket and then slick passing by Chisholm and Brayden Dauphinais (five points, three rebounds, four blocks) found D’Amato for back-to-back threes and with 5:57 to go in the third, Barrette was calling for time with Central trailing 29-28.

The lead flip-flopped from there but off two free throws by Dauphinais, making it 31-30 in Eastern’s favor, Central surged in front for good.

“When we clawed back, I thought that we were going to turn the corner,” said Ray. “I didn’t want to start the half pressuring because I didn’t think we could have done that for the whole half, but we hoped we could kind of play with them. We made some shots, went possession for possession.” 

“We just went empty. The only thing we got was in the open floor.”  

The Rams used a 10-0 run to recapture the momentum and off a lay-up by VanBeveren with 1:39 to go in the third, Central’s edge reached 40-31.  

“We challenged him,” said Barrette of VanBeveren. “From the time he walked into practice yesterday, he’ll tell you, I didn’t shake his hand. I needed a different attitude out of him than the first game [against Eastern]. That was the Jay VanBeveren that we’ve seen ninety percent of the time this year.” 

Eastern trimmed the deficit to five late before Central settled on a 44-37 lead through three completed frames. 

The Kingstreeters never gave in to open the fourth, but Thompson jammed home a 3 and later hit a free throw and with 7:15 to go in the showdown, Central led 48-37.

“Melo made plays tonight,” said Barrette of Thompson who scored eight fourth period points. “He had some turnovers, he had some tough shots but it’s hard to take him out of a game because he does things no one else can do on this team. He made some huge plays and really put us on his back to push out that lead.” 

The lead stayed in double figures for most of the fourth but Eastern chopped it down to single digits late.

A hoop from Sward made it 54-45 with 2:21 left before the Rams went to its stall, forcing Eastern to foul and inducing several 1-and-1 free throw situations.

Central’s Mike Allan went 3-of-6 from the charity stripe over the stretch but thanks to a 4-for-4 showing from the free throw line late by Sward, Eastern chopped the deficit down to two possessions at 58-52 with 39.4 seconds remaining in regulation.

A late miss by the Rams led to an Eastern turnover and when Allan dropped in one final foul shot, Central led 59-52 with 11.5 seconds showing on the clock with the victory in hand.

“It means the end of the [losing] streak,” said Barrette of the win. “We had a couple games we gave away I felt in the last couple weeks, not making free throws and things like that. I thought we were much more composed in the second half. They blitzed us a little bit with that trap. At halftime, we talked about composure, we talked about poise, and I said, ‘there’s no secret, I can’t teach you poise in game twenty. In game twenty, we got have it.’” 

“‘All those battles versus Northwest and East [Catholic] has set you up for this moment’ and we were able to finish the game tonight.”  

Bristol Boys Basketball – Crosstown Confrontation  

BRISTOL CENTRAL 59, BRISTOL EASTERN 52  

from the Thomas M. Monahan Gymnasium, Bristol  

Bristol Central (6-14)           17 8 19 15 – 59  

Bristol Eastern (10-10)         3 18 16 15 – 52  

BRISTOL CENTRAL (59): Julius Powell 1 0 2, Mike Allan 0 3 3, Jaysun Dominguez 0 0 0, Carmelo Thompson 7 3 18, Joey Pikiell 3 0 7, Mason Stokes 5 1 11, Aiden Lopez 0 0 0, Tre Blair 0 0 0, Jayeson VanBeveren 8 0 16, Jonmanuel Gomez 0 0 0. Totals: 24 9 59.  

BRISTOL EASTERN (52): Nate Fries 2 1 5, Zaveyn Tate 2 0 5, Brayden Dauphinais 1 3 5, Lukas Sward 5 6 16, Ben D’Amato 2 0 6, Jordan Chisholm 5 3 13, Isaiah Lawrence-Bynum 0 0 0, Dante DePass 1 0 2, Mikey Sherill 0 0 0. Totals: 18 13 52.  

Three-point goals: Thompson (BC), Pikiell (BC), Tate (BE), D’Amato (BE) 2.  

Records: Bristol Central 6-14 overall; Bristol Eastern 10-10.