WHEELS FALL OFF FOR BLUE DEVILS
South rallies past Leominster in CMADA Class A game
Everything was going according to plan.
The Leominster High boys basketball team, seeded third in the CMADA Class A tournament, had fended off a push by No. 6 South in the opening minutes of Monday’s game. Having withstood all the Colonels had thrown at them early on, the Blue Devils turned up the intensity and raced out to a 15-point lead midway through the second.
All was well until the guests from Worcester found their composure and flipped the script on the Blue Devils.
South grabbed some serious momentum before halftime and completed its rally after the intermission, besting the Blue Devils 61-54 at Leominster High School.
If the first half was a game of runs, the second half went to the team that exhibited more consistency, as the Blue Devils struggled to score and the Colonels were patient and made the most of their opportunities.
“We seemed to get tired and stopped playing hard and (South) clawed back into it,” Leominster head coach Kevin Grutchfield said. “In the second half, we were trading baskets with them for a while, but when it came down to it, they hit the shots they needed to and we didn’t.”
Terrance Mccormack led Leominster (10-9) with 14 points and Justin Dadah added 11. But South’s tandem of Cassidy Bonsu (game-high 23 points) and Alex Johnson (20 points) was too much for the Blue Devils to handle after the intermission.
“We calmed down. We were erratic early. We’d get stops and then take bad shots. I just told the kids to relax,” said South head coach Pat Williams, whose team improved to 11-8. “When they calmed down, they made a run. We were down 15 and cut it to three by halftime. We’re playing a good team in Leominster and we needed to know that we could compete if we just calmed down.”
Leominster led 31-16 with
4:50 left to play in the first half after a layup by Chase Hause (seven points). But South closed the quarter strong, scoring the last nine points before the break.
Johnson converted a layup after an inadvertent whistle with 1.4 seconds left in the half to cut the lead to 33- 30. Leominster had stopped when the whistle was blown, but the referees awarded the basket.
The Blue Devils opened with the first four points — all from Ricky Encarnacion — of the third to push the lead to seven, but South hung around and finished the quarter on a 9-3 run to go up 47- 43 with eight minutes left to play.
“Strange game. Our starters came out flat, but we had some young guys come in and give us a nice bump when we needed it,” Grutchfield said. “We started hitting some shots, but we couldn’t match them in the second half. You could see that we were tired and they took advantage.”
Bonsu and Dadah traded 3-pointers with three minutes to play in the third before the Colonels forward finished the frame with flourish. Bonsu scored the final six points of the quarter to give the guests a fourpoint edge heading to the fourth.
While Leominster struggled to score in the final frame, the guests made a living from the free-throw line. The Colonels went 10-for-12 from the charity stripe in the fourth quarter to seal the victory, hitting 18 of 21 free throws in the game.
“That’s a first. That’s the first time anyone can say that about this team,” Williams said of his team’s success with a laugh.
Conversely, the Blue Devils hit just eight of 15 free throw attempts.
Ahead 19-12 after the first quarter, Leominster took advantage of South turnovers in the second as the lead ballooned to double digits. Mccormack was hot from deep early and the Blue Devils moved the ball well as they opened a big lead.
The hosts looked to be comfortably ahead at 3320 with 2:18 remaining in the second, but South closed with 10 unanswered points, including a threepoint play by Johnson, to make it a three-point contest at the half.