Kolek nets 42 in victory

CUMBERLAND — Cumberland’s Tyler Kolek didn’t have much time to enjoy scoring his 1,000th point Tuesday night because Wednesday morning he felt sick and was forced to stay home from school because he was throwing up.

The talented junior wing was still sick prior to Thursday’s Division II home tilt with Prout, but it wasn’t going to stop him from taking care of the Crusaders.

Cumberland, which was missing key role players Mitchell Lydon and Evan Marcet because of a teamwide sickness, trailed the Crusaders by seven points before Kolek dragged his team to a comfortable victory. The lefty scored 20 points in the opening half and ended up making six 3-pointers in a career-high 42-point night to lead Cumberland to an 81-64 victory over the Crusaders at the Wellness Center.

“I’m feeling better,” said Kolek, who also had 12 rebounds. “[Wednesday] was rough because I couldn’t get out of bed and go to school, but I’m feeling better today. I just had to get out of a funk early in the game. I wasn’t feeling good in warmups and the beginning of the game. Once I started getting warmed up everything started flowing.”

“I told the kids in the locker room I thought this was the best game we’ve played all year because we’ve been fighting this bug that’s going around,” Cumberland coach Gary Reedy said. “We didn’t have two kids dress tonight because they’re home with a bug. Tyler was sick today and he threw up 42 points, which is tremendous. The defense won this game for us because we stayed mentally tough.”

Cumberland (8-1 Division II) has played well in the first half of the season after winning last season’s title, but Reedy knows bigger tests are ahead as the Clippers still have to played undefeated Narraganset along with oneloss Westerly and local rival Shea, which has just two losses after reaching last season’s Open title game.

“We have a long ways to go,” Reedy said. “We’re probably at the halfway mark of where I want to be. We still have the meet of the schedule coming up, so it’s just one game at a time and one practice at a time.”

Sophomore point guard Dante Aviles-Santos chipped in with 14 points and Brandon Raftery added 11 points. Junior forward Jackson Zancan picked up three fouls in the opening five minutes and scored all 10 of his points in the first 10 minutes of the second half.

Prout (2-6 Division II) received a team-high 18 points from senior forward Nick Maher, while Jacob Moniz added 10 points. The Crusaders took advantage of the sluggish Clippers and Zancan’s foul trouble to build a 20-11 lead nine minutes into the game.

The Crusaders led 27-22 with three minutes left in the half when Kolek broke the Clippers out of their lethargy. The junior scored five points late in the half as did Aviles-Santos to spark a 9-0 run to give Cumberland a lead it would never relinquish. The Clippers led by four points at halftime.

“It was really about the defense as the game went on,” Kolek said. “Coach said to hold them to 27 in a half and I think they got up to 31 in the first half. That was good defense holding them to that many points because they have a lot of good scorers.”

Reedy made it a point to get the ball to Zancan early in the second half and the junior delivered with a bucket 10 seconds into the half. Cumberland slowly pulled away – building a 61-45 lead with seven minutes left – and Kolek hit three 3-pointers late in the half to stretch the lead out to 20 before he and the starters were sent to the bench for the final two minutes.

“I’m proud of the kids, I thought they played hard,” Reedy said. “I am worried about the sickness, I wasn’t worried about the letdown [after Tuesday’s win over Middletown]. We always come to play, but we had three kids get a lot of minutes who don’t usually get that many minutes.”

The Clippers hope to have everyone available for Monday’s trip to struggling North Providence.