SEMIFINAL SORROW
Clippers can’t solve Avengers
NORTH KINGSTOWN – Do you ever come up against teams with a single dominant scorer? One player who’s good for 25-plus points on a nightly basis?
Behold, the box-and-one defense that the East Greenwich High boys’ basketball ran to perfection against Tyler Kolek and No. 1 seed Cumberland in the Division II semifinals on Friday night at North Kingstown High.
The fourth-seeded Avengers found harmony in an approach that slowed the Clippers’ star player and their typically potent offense to a surprising crawl. The normally reliable and potent Kolek endured a rare tough night as defending D-II champion Cumberland dropped a 58-46 decision. The loss snapped the Clippers’ 17-game winning streak, which started after dropping an overtime game to the same East Greenwich outfit in early January.
Kolek was held in check with 11 points on three field goals, though the junior did have seven assists and six steals. The majority of those assists went to classmate Jackson Zancan, who tried to keep the Clippers afloat en route to a game-high 25 points. Cumberland didn’t get much help from its supporting cast as East Greenwich’s bench outscored Cumberland’s, 20-0.
“When you’ve won 17 in a row … after a while you kind of think you’re invincible,” said CHS head coach Gary Reedy. “They just shut us down and we had to work for everything. Nothing was easy.”
“Tyler is a great player and makes everyone else great,” said East Greenwich head coach Don Bowen. “We ran people at him and I think we wore him out. There were a couple of times when they ran screens for him and he hit some shots, but that was okay. He’s a tough matchup.”
Cumberland now has two losses this season compared to 24 victories. Both of those defeats came at the hands of East Greenwich, which advances to Sunday’s divisional title game against either Narragansett or Westerly at CCRI-Warwick. Colin Cianciolo led the Avengers with 17 points while Andrew Blessing supplied 14 points off the bench on three 3-pointers.
Unlike the previous meeting where the Avengers rallied from a double-digit deficit to nip the Clippers in overtime, Friday’s rematch was pretty much all East Greenwich from start to finish. The Avengers jumped out to leads of 8-0 and 14-4 and never once trailed. Cumberland didn’t help matters with seven turnovers in the opening seven minutes that directly led to 10 points.
“We came out flat,” said Reedy matter-of-factly.
The Clippers did chip away, albeit very slowly. Zancan scored seven straight points to cut East Greenwich’s lead to 17-15 before later delivering a hoop to tie the game at 19-19 twith 2:32 left in the first half.
East Greenwich respondked to Cumberland’s push with a strong showing to close out the half. Back-to-back jumpers by Eamon Keenan (six points) jumpstarted an 8-0 run that Blessing capped with a three and a free throw. Just like that, the Clippers were once again forced to play from behind as rthey walked off the court down 27-19 at the half.
“That was very important,” rsaid Bowen. “We tried to break the game down into four-minute segments and never get too high or too low. The kids did a great job managing that and we rhad an unbelievable game defensively.”
Kolek was the lone bright spot during the opening minutes of the second half, burying two threes around four Cumberland turnovers. The second trey brought the Clippers to within three (28-25). In keeping with the game-long theme, the Avengers had all the answers. Blessing’s third triple of the contest opened things back up for East Greenwich at 33-25.
The Clippers moved to within two behind a three-point play by Zancan and a deep three from sophomore Dante Aviles-Santos (seven points), but the Avengers rattled off seven straight points to enjoy a 40-31 lead as the clock ticked to under nine minutes remaining.
From there, Cumberland’s defense started to resemble the team’s offensive woes. Cianciolo shredded the Clippers’ man-to-man with an easy duce and Keenan provided the capper with a jumper that felt like a desperate prayer had been answered. The make put East Greenwich up 53-44 with 1:33 left.
“We started losing guys underneath,” said Reedy, who plans to give his players the weekend off before returning to the court on Monday in advance of the 16-team open state tournament that begins next Thursday.
Cumberland was third in the power-point standings with 15.2 points heading into Friday’s action with Narragansett (14.4 points) La Salle (14) in close range.