DANVERS — The Lynnfield boys basketball team saw its season come to a close with a 62-47 loss to Danvers Friday on the Falcons’ Senior Night at the Danvers High School Field House.
Poor shooting and a lethargic first half proved to be the difference in this one. The Pioneers trailed by 13 at the half, 29-16, and made a run in the second half to get the deficit down to seven, 34-27 with 3:30 left in the third quarter, but it was too little, too late.
Senior captain Clay Marengi hit five 3-pointers to lead the Pioneers with 17 points. Senior captain Max Boustris was also in double figures with 14 points.
Jared Berry led the Falcons with a game-high 20 points, while Chris Perez had 17 points and Max Beuvelet had 14.
“We were flat, flat, flat and I think that game was indicative of the season,” said Lynnfield coach Scott MacKenzie. “For 50 percent of it, we had no interest in being here and for 50 percent of it we did and we did cut it down there at the start of the second half. This isn’t the kind of group that can just turn it on and have it be there. This is a super disappointing way to end the year.”
Lynnfield got off to a fast start on back-to-back buckets from senior captains Khad Connell and Boustris. After that, the Pioneers went stone cold as the Falcons dominated the boards at both ends of the court. With 3:24 to go in the quarter, junior Jack Ford (four points) found junior Blake Peters (five point, four rebounds) alone on the backdoor for an easy layup to knot the game at 6-6, but those would be the last points the Pioneers scored until the 4:00 mark of the second quarter when Marengi heated up. He drained a three-pointer that cut the Falcons’ lead to 15-9, then swished an NBA-worthy three to make it 20-12. Konnell (four points, nine rebounds, two blocks) followed up his offensive rebound, then a steal and coast-to-coast layup from Marengi caped the scoring for the Pioneers.
Danvers closed out the half with a 6-0 run to take a 29-16 lead into halftime.
Lynnfield showed some life at the start of the third quarter. Marengi drained a pair of three-points sandwiched around a Jared Berry three (20 points) to spark a 11-5 run, the big shots being a bucket from Boustris and a three from Peters to close the gap to seven, 34-27.
But the Falcons stormed back and went on a 15-6 run to close out the quarter and gain some breathing room with a 49-33 lead going into the final eight minutes.
The Pioneers climbed back to within 10, 54-44, after another Marengi bomb and steal and coast-to-coast layup from Ford, but Danvers withstood the threat and put the game out of reach over the final minutes of the game.
MacKenzie highlighted the contributions made by seniors Boustris, Connell and Marengi.
“Over the last four years, these guys have spent, collectively 13-14 months playing basketball,” MacKenzie said. “I credit them for staying the course and am really happy they did, but they’re not happy with seven wins by any means. I’m happy that they had a senior year where they all were allowed to play quality time, maybe between 27-32 minutes a game, so all three should be able to look back and say that they played a lot of basketball and there’s something to be said for that.
“Clay is a decorated athlete, Khad is a football guy and Max is a basketball guy and there was never a single issue with them in four years being disrespectful to their teammates, their teachers or the staff. They are just really high-quality guys and that’s way more important than some stupid basketball game.”
The seniors agreed that while the season wasn’t as successful as they hoped, they gave it their best.
“We know it was our last game of the year but I guess in that first half we just didn’t have the energy,” said Marengi. “Second half, coach said ‘what do we have to lose you don’t want to regret it,’ so we played our hearts out in the second half.”
“Their No. 15 was so strong and maybe (Danvers) just wanted it more than we did, but we played as hard as we could and that’s what matters,” said Connell. “For me, overall these last four years have been nothing but thumbs up.”
“I was kind of shooting because it was my last game,” said Boustris, who launched several NBA-worthy threes, making a couple from downtown. “The main thing was we were just trying to have some fun out there. We got back in the game, and I loved every second of my four years with this team.”
Lynnfield finished the season 7-13, while Danvers finished 5-15.