Clippers head to tourney
Upstart SRA takes lead in second half; loses by 7
Cumberland faces Tiverton in boys’ hoops bracket
NORTH KINGSTOWN – With under nine minutes remaining in Wednesday’s Round of 16 contest against perennial girls basketball power, St. Raphael could start to dream the impossible.
The Saints, the No. 16 seed in the Open tournament, were up 37-35 and clearly had the top-seeded Rams on the run. La Salle’s offense had gone ice cold as visions of a big-time upset began to unfold at North Kingstown High.
Luckily, the Rams had Jayme DeCesare on their side. The junior guard single-handedly carried her team to the finish line as her refusal to lose proved instrumental in a 52-45 final. DeCesare netted all but one of the six field goals that La Salle mustered in the second half en route to a game-high 26 points.
“DeCesare absolutely destroyed us,” said SRA head coach Tammy Drape after watching her girls throw a major scare at a La Salle outfit that’s looking for a
state crown to go along with the Division I championship flag that was captured last Saturday. “She not only did a great job as the point guard, but she also shot the ball well.”
St. Raphael’s ability to hang tough with La Salle for much of the contest was largely due to the contributions of promising freshman Amaya Dowdy (16 points, 13 rebounds). Junior Sierra Gonzalez added seven points and seven rebounds.
In a game where DeCesare made one big shot after another, SRA saw its offense hit a roadblock at a most inopportune time. The Saints trailed 43-42 after sophomore Paige O’Brien buried one of her two three-pointers from the right wing. Over the final 4:52, SRA managed just three points, one coming when Gonzalez hit a free throw with one second left and the outcome already decided. St. Raphael had nearly as many misses from the field (five) as turnovers (four) down the stretch.
In the end, it was DeCesare who saved the day for the Rams, who advance to Saturday’s quarterfinals at Rhode Island College to face East Greenwich, which knocked off South Kingstown. She was the only La Salle player to score in double figures, though three of her teammates managed to hit at least one three-pointer. The Rams swished 10 treys with four belonging to DeCesare.
“At the end of the day, they’re such a disciplined team,” said Drape. “They kept their composure and you really can’t take anything away from them.”
The Saints overcame a shaky start – back-to-back turnovers in game’s opening minute that helped the Rams jump out to a 6-2 lead – and wound up staying within striking distance despite La Salle finding the range from deep. After Aria DiNobile made back-to-back threes, it was DeCesare’s turn with consecutive makes of her own that helped put her team up 21-15.
A 9-2 run by the Saints was capped in emphatic fashion as Dowdy caught an air ball and immediately went into attack mode. She stayed tough through the contact and completed the three-point play to give SRA a 24-23 lead with 2:26 left before the half. Before that, the Saints’ ability to get into the paint and finish was on full display as the Rams had trouble keeping their opponent out of the lane.
Right before the half, La Salle head coach Sean Reddy switched to a zone defense took away St. Raphael’s bread-and-butter. The Rams scored the final nine points – all on threes – to take a 32-24 lead into halftime.
“I thought they outquicked us in the first half, but I thought we did a better job of keeping them in front of us in the second half,” said Reddy.
The start of the second half resembled a rock fight with Dowdy fighting to carve out space and DeCessare looking to keep La Salle’s offensive funk from becoming too problematic. The Rams missed 10 of their first 11 shots and turned the ball over five times, yet only trailed by two as the clock moved to under nine minutes. SRA junior Monet Gailloux broke the 35-35 stalemate with a floater that seemed as if a prayer had been answered.
“We held the ball and didn’t move it as well as we normally do. There was a lot of standing around,” said Reddy. “The game is always difficult when the ball’s not going in, but we were fortunate tonight.”
After tying the game at 3737, DeCesare went coast-tocoast and delivered a layup. She was fouled and made the free throw, a sequence that put the Rams up for good with 6:36 left. After a hoop by Gailloux, DeCesare responded with another three-point play that put La Salle up four (43-39) with 6:02 left.
After O’Brien made a shot from downtown to bring the Saints to within one, La Salle senior Christina Kiser made a three that proved to be a backbreaker. A layup by ninth grader Tatum Forbes brought SRA to within a duce (4644) with under three minutes left, but that’s as close as the youthful Saints would come the rest of the way on a night when a significant scare was thrown in La Salle’s direction.
“I told the kids to keep their heads up high. They have nothing to be ashamed of,” said Drape, who is scheduled to welcome back all seven players who saw time Wednesday night. “That’s a young team and hopefully better days are to come.” ST. RAPHAEL (45) Tatum Forbes 4 0-3 8, Amaya Dowdy 6 4-5 16, Paige O’Brien 2 0-0 6, Monet Gailloux 2 0-0 4, Sierra Gonzalez 3 1-4 7, Elizabeth Bruno 1 0-0 2, Kaylee Mulligan 1 0-1 2. Totals: 19 5-13 45.
LA SALLE (52): Ella Fiore 2 2-7 4, Jayme DeCesare 9 4-4 26, Lauren Ferreira 0 0-0 0, Caroline Wilson 1 3-4 6, Christina Kiser 2 0-0 6, Kelly Gallagher 0 0-0 0, Aria DiNobile 2 0-0 6, Catherine Medeiros 1 0-0 2, Malena Corso. Totals: 17 9-15 52.
Halftime: L 32-24
3-point field goals: SRA 2 (Paige O’Brien 2); L 9 (Jayme DeCesare 4, Christina Kiser 2, Aria DiNobile 2, Caroline Wilson).