LYNN — By now, local high school basketball fans should be accustomed to what Jalen Echevarria of St. Mary’s brings to the table.
But lest anyone forget, the senior guard gave everyone a gentle reminder of why he is so tough. Because in a strange sort of way Saturday, his value to St. Mary’s 64-51 MIAA Division 3 North quarterfinal win over Arlington Catholic was in the very quiet way he amassed his 25 points.
“He got off to a slow start,” said coach Dave Brown. “But then he hits a couple, sinks a couple of free throws, hits a three, and next thing you know he has 25 points and you wonder how he got there.”
Echevarria had only nine points at halftime Saturday, and didn’t score his first basket until late in the first quarter. He went through another drought in the second period until successive baskets late in the quarter, one a three the other a two — closed up a six-point Cougar lead to only one at the break.
“Those were big baskets,” said Brown. “I liked that we closed it to one by the half.”
The No. 1 Spartans (22-2) will play 12th-seeded Dracut (12-10) Wednesday (7:30) in the Division 3 North semifinal at St. John’s Prep.
The game itself illustrated the difficulty in beating a team three times in a season, Brown said. St. Mary’s and Arlington Catholic are both in the Catholic Central League, an the Spartans swept the Cougars in the regular season.
“I don’t care,” Brown said. “It’s a hard thing, to beat a team three times in a season. They were ready for us. They gave us all they had. And there were a couple of times where it looked like we were going to put them away, but we couldn’t.”
The first of those times came at the close of the first quarter when the Spartans went on an 8-0 run, keyed by two baskets by Echevarria and one each from Ademide Badmus (11 points) and Joseph Abate-Walsh, to lead 16-8.
When Chip Onwuogu hit a foul shot at the beginning of the second quarter to make it 17-8, the Cougars got busy, outscoring St. Mary’s 10-1 over the next five minutes to tie the game at 18.
“Their coach (Joe Burke) does a nice job of steadying them,” Brown said. “He saw some things and they got back into the game.”
But it wasn’t all Cougars. Brown told his team that it should attack the hoop first and to free the way for the long ball. Instead, the Spartans did the opposite, and as they were 1-for-13 from beyond the arc, they ran into problems.
The Cougars ended up leading, 28-22, late in the second quarter before Echevarria’s flurry at the end closed the gap to one.
Onwuogu, who has been bothered with a knee injury, was ready to go to start the third quarter and his presence in the middle changed the game, Brown said.
“He blocked a few shots (three in a row) right at the beginning, and that affected the whole game,” he said.
It also allowed the Spartans to build a 46-32 lead going into the fourth quarter that, once again, wasn’t enough to put the Cougars away. Arlington Catholic had it back under 10 before it got to be time for the Cougars to start fouling. And St. Mary’s made nine free throws down the stretch to keep the Cougars at bay.
Other top scorers for St. Mary’s were Marvens Rosirus (9) and Abate-Walsh (7).
For Arlington Catholic, Ryan Svendsen had a team-high 13 points.