ITEM PHOTO BY KATIE MORRISON
Erick Solis and the Rams drained ten three-pointers in Tuesday’s win.
By STEVE KRAUSE
LYNN — Way back in 1983, the Weather Girls made hay with a song called “It’s Raining Men.”
Tuesday night at the Lynn Classical gym, it wasn’t men falling down from the sky. But a lot of three-pointers were showering down upon the facility.
There were 15 of them, to be exact — 10 by Classical and five by Saugus.
However, Saugus couldn’t keep up with Classical as the night wore on, and the Rams improved their record to 8-2 with a 73-49 win.
Classical coach Tom Grassa explained the outburst of trifectas, saying that his team generally does well against man-to-man defenses so Saugus came out in a zone instead.
“We’re pretty explosive against man-to-man defenses,” Grassa said. “We have people who can run the floor, and work the pick-and-roll.”
Saugus generally plays a zone, Grassa said, so he was prepared for it.
“We generally average about five threes,” Grassa said. “If someone’s going to throw a zone up against us, it’s a good weapon to have.”
Still, with all of Classical’s hot shooting, Saugus only trailed by six at the break, 37-31. Why? Saugus coach Paul Moran was prepared for Classical’s full-court press, which it employed for most of the first 16 minutes.
“I think he scouted us and must have worked all weekend to figure out how to break it,” Grassa said. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. All I know is we ran it, and they scored 31 points.”
It looked as if Classical would run Saugus out of the building in the first half, with the lead getting up to 15 (32-17) at its highest. But Haris Behremovic had the hot hand, and it showed up late in the half, as he hit two late threes to help get the lead down.
For Classical, the Solis brothers, Erick and Edwin, combined for 20 of Classical’s 37 points during the first two quarters (Erick ended up leading all scorers with 21 points, and Edwin had 12).
Classical came out on fire in the second half, jumping on the Sachems for a 9-2 run, all on threes (two by Gilbert Minaya and one by Erick Solis).
That made the score 46-33 and, once again, it looked as if Classical was going to run the Sachems out of the gym. It never really got closer than that, as the Sachems steadily pulled away from there.
“Classical is a very good team,” said Moran. “I thought we competed with them pretty well in the first half.
“We shot well and passed well,” he said. “But Classical beat us up on the boards. We didn’t do well there.”
Others in double figures for Classical were Jaylen Johnson (11 points) and Jonathan Nicosia (12).
For Saugus, Behremovic had 15 points, all on threes. Demetri Filaretos had 10 and Matthew Waggett eight.
Steve Krause can be reached at [email protected].