ITEM PHOTO BY KATIE MORRISON
Tournament MVP Temi Falayi pulls down a rebound in front of Swampscott’s Hannah Leahy.
LYNN — The St. Mary’s girls basketball team checked a box off its to-do list Wednesday night at the Paul Cavanagh gymnasium, taking down Swampscott, 56-28, to capture its third-straight Walter J. Boverini Tournament title.
The Spartans were led by tournament MVP Temi Falayi and all-tournament players Olivia Nazaire and Mia Nowicki as they rolled over Swampscott, which beat English Tuesday to reach the tournament final.
“We’re putting it together a little bit, which is obviously a comforting feeling,” said St. Mary’s (3-4) coach Jeff Newhall. “We’re making better basketball decisions, our turnovers have gone down, and I think the biggest difference is our defense has gotten a lot better and we’re making some of the shots we were missing before.”
St. Mary’s didn’t have to sweat this one out. Amanda Idusuyi went 1-for-2 on free throws and added a layup to open the scoring, and Swampscott’s Nikki Rosa tied the score at 3. From there on out, it was all Spartans. St. Mary’s went on a 16-3 run to close out the first quarter, and never looked back.
The Spartans held Swampscott to just five points in the second and six in the third. It wasn’t until the final quarter, when both the Big Blue and Spartans gave bench players minutes, that Swampscott got its offense moving, outscoring St. Mary’s 11-10 in the fourth.
The Spartans spread the offense around Wednesday, with Nazaire leading the way with 16 points. Idusuyi had a big game with 11 points, and Falayi logged a double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds. Nowicki added six points, all coming in the first half, and Mashayla Johnson opened the second half with two 3-pointers, her only baskets of the game in limited action.
As good as the Spartans were offensively, on defense, they were even better. Newhall said that the improved defense was the product of hard work in practice and added that getting the chance to get in three practices in a row after coming back from the KSA Pre-Holiday Classic in Florida last week was very beneficial.
“We came back from Florida last Thursday, practiced Friday, Saturday and Monday, and it was the first time we had three practices before a game,” Newhall said. “I think that’s when we got better. We worked a lot on our man defense.”
While the Big Blue had trouble generating offense, they did get nine points each from Rosa and all-tournament player Ella Parker. Jaymie Caponigro, Swampscott’s other all-tournament honoree, scored four points, as did Olivia Matella.
“They’re bigger than we’ve seen this season, and they played aggressive defense and really made it hard for us to get shots off,” Swampscott coach Katelyn Leonard said of St. Mary’s. “When we did, we got good looks, but we had too many periods of not scoring and those droughts really killed us.”
However, of the three Northeastern Conference teams in the girls portion of the tournament, Swampscott was the only one to make it to the final. Leonard said playing a perennial powerhouse like St. Mary’s can only help her team.
“It’s always good to play the best you can, and we were looking to play hard and never quit, and that’s what we did,” Leonard said. “It’s something we can build on, and after seeing what you can do against a really good team, the next time you face a team like that, it makes it that much easier.”
For St. Mary’s, winning the tournament was the first benchmark reached in the new season. Although it’s been a rocky start for the Spartans, winning the city title for the fifth time in seven years means things are moving in the right direction.
“Any time you’re in a tournament, you want to win it, and we did,” Newhall said. “To beat two of the better teams in the NEC, outside of our own gym…it’s a tournament we want to win. To be the city champion, even though it’s early in the year, it was our first goal.”
Consolation game
Lynn Classical 50, Lynn English 27
The Rams evened their record to 3-3 on the year with a win in the consolation game over rival English. Junior forward Paris Wilkey led the way for Classical with 18 points, while Irianis Delgado contributed 15 points. Soneta Srey played a great game on the defensive end, while Jeylly Medrano dictated the pace of the game from the guard spot.
“We played a great game on defense today,” said Classical coach Tom Sawyer.
The Rams will have the weekend off before a rematch with English on Tuesday.
Katie Morrison can be reached at [email protected].