All Saints’ Day
St. Raphael girls have no trouble with Shea, 42-28
PAWTUCKET — The first words out of St. Raphael Academy head coach Tammy Drape’s mouth after her Saints captured a 48-28 victory over Shea High in the championship game of the Donaldson/Lynch Memorial Holiday Tournament on Saturday night: “God, that was ugly!”
Her simple and firm statement to the media on hand nailed the overall theme to the game, one that included 66 total turnovers and a combined success rate at the charity stripe a meager 33.3 percent (nine-for-30).
Still, SRA defended its title from the inaugural event a year ago, and Drape discovered more about her extremely young squad, now understands what she – and her girls – have to address at this extremely early juncture of the campaign/
“We’re just going to go back to the drawing board at practice and try to fine-tune a few things; we have Portsmouth (in the Division I opener) on Wednesday, so we have to improve,” she noted after her Saints improved to 2-0 overall. “We’ve got a lot of talent and athleticism, but we have to start finding ways to piece things together. I’ve got 12 kids on the team, so I’m trying to make 12 kids happy (with playing time).
“I also have five freshmen on the varsity team, and (Elizabeth) Bruno is a great little guard, and those girls are learning from our two seniors, Jaylene Fonseca and Micayla Bourski,” she added. “It’s going to be interesting. I think we can compete in D-I, but I have to keep in mind we have so many freshmen.”
Newcomer/center Amaya Dowdy paced the Saints with a team-high 10 points, while classmate Tatum Forbes closed with nine, junior Money Gailoux eight and Bruno seven.
Fonseca chipped in six with a pair of treys.
For the Raiders, who fell to 1-1 overall after committing a whopping 40 turnovers, sophomore Yasmine Santos led the way with nine points and nine boards, with junior Denesha Lomba recording seven points and a
dozen boards. Frosh Kaylisse Depina produced seven points, and classmate Allison DosSantos-Soares four.
Tournament officials chose Dowdy the event’s Most Valuable Player; the rest of the All-Tournament Team included Gailoux; Shea’s Depina; Tolman senior standout Ally Larson; and Central Falls’ senior swing Dianna Jimenez.
“I thought we looked a little tired; we played pretty well in our win against Tolman, but this was our second game in 48 hours,” Raiders’ chief John Lickert said. “We’re not in shape yet. They ran us up and down the floor, and we just ran out of gas. They were just the better team on this night.”
The Saints leaped to a 6-1 cushion in the opening 2:20, thanks in part to Forbes’ pullup jumper and one-hand floater, but Santos canned a tough layup in traffic to slice the deficit to 6-3 with 2:58 elapsed.
Lickert’s bunch was off and running, until it committed its sixth turnover of the half 33 seconds later.
Dowdy then hit a putback, Gailoux a turnaround baseline jumper, Dowdy another short jumper off a rebound, Bruno a coast-to-coast layup and Fonseca a three-bomb to spark a 13-0 run over the next 4:04.
With that last basket, SRA led, 19-3, with 8:11 remaining before intermission, and Forbes’ trey extended the cushion to 24-5 with 5:52 left.
In the interim, the Saints kept the SHS offense dormant for 5:24 – that is, until Santos dropped a second freebie 50 ticks later. Despite seeming so small in nature, that seemed to spark the Raiders, who outscored their foe, 7-0, over the final 5:52. They entered intermission behind only a dozen, 24-12.
Shea kept pace through the first 3:04, when Lomba’s 15-footer sliced the gap to 28-14.
The Saints, though, manufactured another 11-4 surge in a span of 6:35 to notch the semi-blowout.
“They just beat us; we didn’t take care of the ball,” Lickert stated. “Instead of trying to box them out, we shied away from contact. The good news it’s still early in the season, and we played well against Tolman (Thursday night), so we’ll be OK.”
Noted Drape: “The key was our defense. We really wanted to be able to play man-to-man defense, and we did OK with that. I just wish we hadn’t committed so many turnovers.”
Drape also indicated she explained the history of the tourney, named for two Rhode Island legends in James W. Donaldson and Dennis M. Lynch, to her relative newcomers prior to its start.
“I’m very friendly with the Lynch family, so I made it a point to tell them who they were and what they meant to high school sports in Pawtucket and statewide,” she said. “I went to Tolman, so I know all about them.”