ITEM PHOTO BY KATIE MORRISON
Pamela Gonzalez of Revere drives to the hoop.
By STEVE KRAUSE
REVERE — It wouldn’t be too callous to say that the Central Catholic girls basketball team taught Revere a valuable lesson Friday night at the Roland Merullo Fieldhouse.
The Patriots, who at one time this season were the state’s top-rated team, looked strong coming out of the gate in their Division 1 North semifinal game, and led by six at the break. But the Raiders, true to their longstanding pedigree as one of the top teams in the state, rallied in the final two quarters to take a 68-62 win, and move onto the sectional semifinal next week against Woburn.
Central coach Casey Grange, in her second year in Lawrence, thought her team was just a little mentally tougher down the stretch and that spelled the difference.
“I think day in and day out, we play a much tougher schedule than they do,” said Grange, comparing the up-and-down strong Merrimack Valley Conference to the Northeastern Conference, in which Revere was undefeated. “You have to bring it every night when you play the games we play.”
Revere’s Lianne O’Hara didn’t disagree.
“I do think mental toughness is a factor,” she said. “I like mental toughness.”
And she did feel that coming down the stretch, when the points were harder to come by, and every possession was contested, Central outplayed her team.
“We went through a stretch in the third and fourth quarter where they trapped us and three straight times, we turned it over before we got to halfcourt,” O’Hara said. “And then, we we did get it over, we still turned it over.”
While it was a game of two halves (Revere winning the first and Central the second), the game was the Patriots’ for the taking just the same. With Central up by six (59-53) Emily DiGiulio hit a big 3-pointer with 46 seconds left in the game. After a Central miss on the other end, Revere came back down the court and got the ball to guard Pamela Gonzalez (team-high 17 points), who put up a reverse layup that looked as if it was climbing up the rim and going in. But it didn’t have the juice and it fell out. Still, she was fouled.
So what would have been a potential game-tying 3-point play was instead two made free throws and a 1-point deficit (59-58).
Making things even more agonizing for Revere, Central threw the inbounds pass away, giving Revere a golden opportunity to take the lead with 25.1 seconds to go.
But Revere had two attempts, including a put-back attempt by Meaghan Gotham (8 points) that missed. When the Raiders trapped on the ensuing Revere possession, a fouled was called on Revere, and Nicole Elbeery (game-high 19 points) hit both free throws to get the lead back up to three with 13.1 seconds left. The Patriots couldn’t convert down the other end, and Elbeery hit one more freebie to ice the game.
“We needed to be better finishing,” said Gonzalez. “We played much better in the first half.
“I feel so bad for our seniors,” said Gonzalez, a junior. “They are really hurting. I want to come back and I want to win it for them next year, because they really deserved this.”
Revere scored the first eight points of the game before Central could score a basket, and the Patriots led 18-9 after one. Central made a slight comeback in the second quarter and trailed at the half, 32-26.
Gonzalez and Gotham scored back-to-back hoops to open the third quarter, giving Revere a 10-point lead (36-26), which was its high-water mark. The Raiders went on an 18-6 run after that to close the quarter up by two, 44-42.
Another Gotham-Gonzalez back-to-back gave Revere the lead back, 46-44, but, once again, Central got hot and ran off an 11-0 spurt to go up 55-46.
But Revere made inroads with its own 7-2 spurt, setting the stage for the dramatic ending.
“It was a learning experience,” said O’Hara, who was an assistant on last year’s Division 3 state champion Bishop Fenwick team. “It was a great season. I really, really wish we’d have been able to finish this game, but I have some strong juniors coming back next year, so I hope we’re back.”