LYNN — The St. Mary’s boys basketball team couldn’t have picked many tougher opponents to face in its season opener, going up against last year’s Division 2 state champion in the Brighton Bengals. But the two teams each looked much different from last year, and it was the Spartans who were able to capture the 55-46 win at Conigliaro Gym on Friday night.
“I couldn’t be happier with the way our guys played tonight,” said St. Mary’s coach Dave Brown. “Going up against the defending Division 2 champs, we knew they were a tough, athletic team and they’d give us a battle. I was a little nervous starting a bunch of younger guys, but everyone stepped up and helped get the job done.”
The scoring was pretty much evenly distributed, with five of the Spartans’ seven rotation players scoring at least eight points. Seniors Stephen Fama and Onias Mirbel each had 12 points to lead the way, with Mirbel also adding six rebounds. Junior Joey Abate-Walsh had nine points and nine rebounds in his Spartan debut after transferring in this year, and sophomore Josh Perez had eight points and eight rebounds. Junior Jalen Echevarria, one of the top scorers from last season, finished with nine points and two rebounds.
“We’re not going to have a guy that goes out and scores 20 every night this year,” Brown said. “So I’m going to be perfectly happy if we spread it out and have everyone getting between eight and 12 points. We’re not going to be beating teams by scoring in the 80s this year, we’re going to have to hold teams in the 50s and spread out the scoring.”
It was a defensive battle to start the game, with neither team able to get off any clean looks for the entire first quarter. The one thing that worked in the Spartans’ favor was the fact that Brighton got into foul trouble early, getting called for seven fouls in the first frame alone.
The fouls didn’t start really making an impact until the beginning of the second quarter, after the Bengals got called for their eighth foul and put the Spartans on the line. Through that, St. Mary’s was able to stretch out their initially small lead into a 10-point lead at the half, 26-16.
But Brighton didn’t go down without a fight. They slowly started to crawl back into the game, mainly behind the play of forwards Quincy Taylor (13 points, nine rebounds) and Jerrod Clark (13 points, seven rebounds) and guard Johnny Ortiz (nine points). The Bengals started working the ball into the paint for easy baskets while the Spartans started missing shots, and at the third-quarter buzzer Brighton had stolen the lead at 38-37.
The fourth quarter was back-and-forth for the first few minutes, and the two teams were tied at 42-42 with five minutes to go. But from there, St. Mary’s turned on the afterburners and went on a 13-6 run behind some clutch shots from Echevarria and Abate-Walsh to earn the win.
So now, with a little bit of momentum on their side, the Spartans will continue working to get the most out of their new-look team.
“We’ve only had eight or nine practices with this group, and we’re still missing some guys due to injuries and some waiver issues for our transfer guys,” said Brown. “But hopefully we’ll be getting some guys back over the next week or so, and we’ll just keep working to get guys comfortable in the system and keep building that consistency.”
The Spartans (1-0) are back in action on Monday night with a road game against Archbishop Williams at 6:30 p.m.