By Michael Letendre
BRISTOL – The Bristol Central and Bristol Eastern boys basketball teams squared off on the hardwood on Wednesday night for the first time this year.
And the meeting between the programs did not disappoint in the least.
In an extremely physical affair, the Lancers grabbed a seven-point lead midway through the fourth period, withstood a barrage of three-point attempts by the Rams, and watched a potential trifecta just miss late – propelling the Kingstreeters to a huge 52-49 victory from the Charles C. Marsh Gymnasium in the semifinal round of the Bristol Central Holiday Classic.
The bout went down to the wire after the Kingstreeters, now a perfect 4-0, went on a 7-0 run to capture a 51-44 lead with 4:01 to play.
With the game all knotted up at 44-44, Eastern’s Brady Bell drained the biggest 3 of his career, Lukas Sward (16 points, six rebounds) made a steal for a lay-up and when Jordan Chisholm (10 point, four rebounds) stopped on a dime to slip in a lay-up, the Lancers went up by three possessions.
But Quincy Lawson (team-high 11 points) rattled in a 3 off a couple offensive rebounds and after a free throw by Chisholm, the forward from Central (1-3 overall) was at it again.
Carmelo Thompson (10 points, game-high 12 rebounds) found Lawson for a lay-up and with 65 seconds to play, it was a one-possession game at 52-49.
“I’ve got to give Central credit,” said Eastern coach Bunty Ray. “Just a great effort from them. They got their hands everywhere, second shooting opportunities. A lot of those 3s [Central hit] came on second chance opportunities. We kind of busted coverages and all of a sudden [it’s] a kick-out three, a couple banked 3s. Give them credit for that.”
Eastern came out of a timeout looking for a dagger with less than a minute to go but Central forced a shot clock violation, giving the home team a chance to tie things up with a three-pointer – getting the ball back with 28.3 seconds remaining in regulation.
The Rams let some time run off the clock, stopping it with 11 seconds left and during the break, Ray was telling his troops “no 3s.”
However, Thompson had another plan in mind.
With five seconds to go, his three-point attempt just missed the mark and Eastern’s Zaveyn Tate (eight points, nine rebounds, three steals) grabbed the rebound as Eastern hung on to win it.
Give Central credit as the squad gummed up the works over that final period, had several 3s just rim in and out and just couldn’t totally overcome that seven-point deficit in the end.
“There were a couple possessions where I wasn’t happy [at] just about the five-minute mark of the fourth,” said Central coach Tim Barrette. “We did a decent job closing down the stretch. In a game like that with Coach Ray, we both know each other so well, you’re not going to see a 0game in the 70s. You’re going to see a muck-it-up war and you saw some kids playing hard on both sides tonight.”
Central started off the contest off with a 7-0 burst as Jayson Dominguez (eight first half points) was in attack mode — hitting a 3 over the run — as Eastern started the game missing its first eight shots.
But quickly, the Lancers inserted sharpshooter Ben D’Amato (season-high 11 points) into the mix, blasting in a quick 3 and leading to an 11-2 Eastern burst.
“That’s what you do,” said Ray of D’Amato. “Motts comes in and he makes big shots when things aren’t going well. We took a lot of threes on the road and when they’re not going in, you need something inside but Central’s inside players were tough. That’s what was available. Motts comes in and knocks those big shots down, kind of changed momentum, kind of allows us to go and take a breath.”
Eastern shot 49-percent from the field the rest of the way as the visitors grabbed an 11-9 edge off D’Amato’s second trifecta.
The game was all knotted up at 11-11 when an 8-3 push by the Lancers, bookended by two lay-ups from Sward, gave the squad a 19-14 lead with 5:59 to go before the half.
Later in the frame, Tate connected on two charity tosses, Sward hit a sweet up-and-under hoop and when Brayden Dauphinais (four points, five rebounds) found Tate for a lay-up, Eastern held its biggest cushion of the game at 25-16 with 2:43 to go in the second quarter.
But over a stretch of six minutes, Central’s defense went into overdrive and the home team exploded offensively.
Cody Roy and Dominguez canned big 3s and trailing by five at the half (29-24), Thompson rallied the troops with three straight buckets to open the third, his final one of the burst with 4:54 to go in the frame, giving the Rams a 30-29 lead.
“I was happy in the half-court,” said Barrette about Central’s defense. “We [only] gave up eight points on live-ball turnovers…our key to that game was to take away the three-point line which we did an okay job, not well enough in my opinion, but also no live-ball turnovers. So we gave up 29 points out of their 52 in the two concepts that we needed to handle tonight.”
“And that was three too many.”
D’Amato came back in to steady the ship, hitting for five straight points but Central’s Mikey McMahon, suffering from a shot to the mouth earlier in the showdown, came back with two huge threes and his last, which he seemed to bank in all the way from the Bristol Armory, the game was tied and eventually, it was all knotted up at 42-42 with eight minutes to play.
“We play similar styles,” said Barrette. “Obviously, [Eastern] has a little bit older veteran play at the guard position. I think that was evident tonight. We they needed a basket, Lukas was able to get to the hole and do what he had to.”
Over the final 7:16, Central was limited to just five points, Eastern ran some clock and did what it needed to do to win its fourth road game in a row.
“Us with the ball down the stretch, I was very pleased,” said Ray. “I liked the way we were able to spread the court, find the match-up that we liked. [There were] a couple forces but we were on the brink of trying to get an easy basket so I can’t fault them for that.”
Central’s defense allowed Eastern just 10 fourth period points and the Rams nearly tied it late, dropping the hard-fought contest by three points.
“We were trying to score from 24 feet away,” said Barrette. “That’s the difference. Lukas got a lay-up and we were trying to hit 24-foot threes. That makes things a little bit difficult. But with that being said, I said to Coach Ray ‘I don’t expect anything else.’”
“That’s exactly what you’re going to get and what I said to somebody was ‘the first team to fifty [points] wins and he’s the only one that got there.”
Bristol Central Holiday Classic – Semifinal Round
BRISTOL EASTERN 52, BRISTOL CENTRAL 49
from the Charles C. Marsh Gymnasium, Bristol
Bristol Eastern (4-0) 13 16 13 10 – 52
Bristol Central (1-3) 11 13 18 7 – 49
BRISTOL EASTERN (52): Naseem Walker 0 0 0, Brayden Dauphinais 2 0 4, Jordan Chisholm 3 3 10, Isaiah Lawrence-Bynum 0 0 0, Zaveyn Tate 2 4 8, Lukas Sward 8 0 16, Brady Bell 1 0 3, Ben D’Amato 4 0 11. Totals: 20 7 52.
BRISTOL CENTRAL (49): Mikey McMahon 2 0 6, Gavin Chamberlin 0 0 0, Cody Roy 1 0 3, Jayson Dominguez 3 0 8, Nate Ortiz 3 0 7, Carmelo Thompson 5 0 10, Joey Pikiell 1 0 2, Harry Ross 1 0 2, Quincy Lawson 5 0 11. Totals: 21 0 49.
Three-point goals: Jordan Chisholm (BE), Brady Bell (BE), Ben D’Amato (BE) 3, Mikey McMahon (BC) 2, Cody Roy (BC), Jayson Dominguez (BC) 2, Nate Ortiz (BC), Quincy Lawson (BC).
Records: Bristol Eastern 4-0 overall; Bristol Central 1-3.’
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