ITEM PHOTO BY KATIE MORRISON
St. Mary’s Stephen Fama, left, and Jonathan Mola try to pry the ball from Maynard’s Jonathan Mola.
By KATIE MORRISON
SPRINGFIELD — Last March, the St. Mary’s boys basketball team held off Central champion Maynard to win the Division 4 state title.
In February, just days after Super Bowl LI and the improbable comeback by the Patriots, the Spartans erased an eight-point deficit and stunned the Tigers with their own come-from-behind win.
Saturday at Springfield College’s Blake Arena, Maynard was more than ready for St. Mary’s.
The Tigers held the Spartans at arm’s length from start to finish of this year’s Division 4 final rematch, and the third time was a charm for Maynard as it cruised to a 62-42 victory to claim the state crown.
Beating a team, especially one as strong (and long) as Maynard, three times in a row is no easy feat. St. Mary’s found that out Saturday.
“They played a hell of a game,” St. Mary’s coach Dave Brown said.
Brown said the plan was to limit Maynard star Corey Olivier. It worked, to an extent; Olivier scored 11 points on only three field goals, and was held scoreless in the first half.
The problem was the rest of the Tigers were knocking down shots, and the Spartans weren’t.
“If you’re not making shots, no matter how well you play defensively, it’s going to be tough,” Brown said. “We had to do things we didn’t want to do for long stretches because we only play six or seven guys. By trying to pressure them, we wore ourselves down.”
On the other bench, Maynard coach Paul Howes knew his team would have to match St. Mary’s speed and intensity, and after seeing the Spartans twice before, the Tigers were prepared.
“There’s no doubt it helped immensely,” Howes said of Maynard’s past against St. Mary’s, “because you’re aware of their speed. We don’t usually see that type of speed in Central Mass. Usually, we have a chance to be more athletic than our opponent, but against St. Mary’s, that’s not the case.”
As the defending state champions, plenty of teams circled St. Mary’s on their schedules.
But Maynard may have had more motivation than any team to knock off the Spartans after two tough losses.
“Maybe they were a little more motivated than we were, knowing that we beat them twice and we’re the defending state champs,” Brown said. “We took everyone’s best punch all season long. Tonight they definitely gave us their best punch, and knocked us out.”
But Howes said that February’s 66-64 loss was more of a teaching moment than a source of motivation for his squad.
“It taught us a lot. That was a tough loss,” Howes said. “We lost to Marlborough in a similar fashion. So we’ve had a couple of learning curves. We never really let it break us.”
Pursuing revenge wasn’t the spark for Maynard.
“We never really talked about that,” Howes said. “They’re such a classy organization, St. Mary’s, and coach Brown. The winning they do at that school? We just felt like we had a big hurdle to climb. We just have so much respect for them, we don’t go there.”