By Michael Letendre
BRISTOL – There’s no place like home.
But this isn’t a story about a girl named Dorothy and her dog, hanging out with a scarecrow, a cowardly lion and some other strange guy.
This story is about how the Bristol Eastern boys basketball team finally returned home to play its first game from the Thomas M. Monahan Gymnasium this year.
It was the first home game since February 20, 2023, and the facility was packed with students and fans, looking forward to see the Lancers kickoff the season in Bristol.
“I think the kids were excited to be at home,” said Eastern coach Bunty Ray. “I don’t think anybody [from Eastern] has really seen them [play]. Obviously, the Bristol Central game, people came and watched that. That was in Bristol but there’s nothing like being in your home gym, having your fans and getting into your routines here at home.”
The players could have played with a little too much excitement, starting things off tight and giving Tolland an angle into the showdown.
But this veteran group wasn’t the mood for fun and games as the squad rolled off the first nine points of the contest, never looking back.
“It was a good way for us to come back and kind of take a breath,” said Ray. “Tolland had some weapons with [Cam Lumia who scored 14 points] and they’re big [Matt Taylor] but we negated them really well. And once we took them away, I think they really struggled everywhere else.”
“Credit our guys taking away their best players and all of a sudden, we were able to do what we do best.”
Scoring bonanza from BEHS
Eastern scored 76 points in its home debut, one of its highest scoring outputs ever on opening night from the Thomas M. Monahan Gymnasium.
It was a tremendous scoring effort, defeating Tolland by 25 points.
So, when is the last time Eastern scored 76 or more points on opening night from King Street?
Try December 15, 1967.
On that fateful night, the Lancers – then playing in the old CCIL – scored 82 points against Windham.
And the locals still lost by 21 points.
In the same year, Central starting playing in its new gymnasium up on the hill.
On that fateful night, the Kingsteeters lost to the Whippets by a 103-82 final.
Windham’s Danny Switcenko dropped in a game-high 36 points to lead the Whippets to the victory.
Gary Dubnansky scored 22 points while Rick Lincoln added 14 to pace the Lancers.
Starting home play for the Lancers doesn’t always take place right away
It felt like years before the current group of players finally got to play at home.
However, another Eastern team from 21 years ago actually had to wait longer to play its first game at BEHS.
The 2002-03 program played its first game at Bristol Eastern on January 6, 2003 but that only came after four games.
In that debut, the Lancers ended up defeating Avon 57-45 behind 17 points from talented forward Scott Curtin.
Eastern’s went a perfect 4-0 during that stretch with Curtin averaging 17.5 points-per-game over that impressive four pack of contests.
The [Eastern] three-point king was in the house
The player who tallied the most threes in the game for Eastern, Elijah Parent, was in the house watching Chisholm explode for seven threes to tie his school record.
In fact, the entire three-point shooting Parent clan was there at the Thomas M. Monahan Gymnasium, sitting in the corner of the facility, across from the Eastern bench, rooting for Chisholm to splash in that program-tying seventh three.
Elijah’s father, former Bristol Eastern assistant coach D.J. Parent, said he’d hope Chisholm would break the record with Elijah in attendance.
Parent established the program record by dropping 7-of-10 three-pointers against Platt on February 11, 2020.
Ten days earlier, Parent should have captured the three-point record at RHAM High School in Hebron.
With his mother Bevin helping out with the scorebook that day, Parent was a perfect 6-for-6 from downtown and on his seventh attempt – which he easily splashed in – the senior’s toe was on the line and the hoop was counted as a two-point make.
Parent notched 24 points that evening.
Against Tolland, Chisholm hit 7-of-14 shots from long-range to capture a piece of the school record and truly could have canned nine or even ten 3s that night as a few of those shots rimmed in and out.
No matter how its sliced, connecting on seven three-point goals was a tremendous feat and a credit to those two outstanding young men.
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