T-More wins 11th straight tourney title
Chancellors honor school founder Hanrahan with their annual event
Montville — St. Thomas More's yearly basketball schedule features multiple tournaments played throughout the northeast. Heck, the Chancellors will be back on the road at the crack of dawn today for a 9 a.m. date with Wilbraham & Monson at the Hoop Hall Classic in Springfield, Mass. But first, T-More had a little business to take care of on the homefront Saturday.
Playing their sixth game in nine days since returning from the holiday break, the Chancellors won their own tournament — the 29th annual Founder's Tournament — for the 11th straight year with an entertaining 80-67 rival over Bridgton Academy (Maine).
It was also the 11th straight win for St. Thomas More (18-1), which put a deep and talented roster on full display before a large and boisterous crowd at the newly refurbished Jere Quinn Court that included a half-dozen family members of the late James F. Hanrahan, the prep school's founder, the man who hired Quinn 42 years ago and the man they honor the third weekend each January.
"Jim Hanrahan was certainly someone who took a risk on me and he saw things in me that I never saw in myself," Quinn said. "He was always supportive of me and my family. As an ex-basketball coach at Fairfield university, he understood. He liked his basketball, but he liked his student-athletes better. He was always a big proponent of kids maximizing themselves in the classroom and in the gym."
It's a history lesson he delivers each year to his players.
"One of the things we always tell our kids is you hear with your ears, but you also listen with your eyes," Quinn said. "Pay attention. There are certain things you need to pay attention to."
Translation: This tournament is extremely important to the St. Thomas More community, which isn't lost on Quinn's players, even though most spend just one season at the quiet campus on Gardner Lake before moving on to four-year colleges.
"This is our tournament, so we take it very seriously," said Jared Garcia, who will attend Division I
UNC Charlotte next season. "A lot of people come here in support, so it's a big deal for us."
Garcia, a 6-foot-8, 240-pound power forward from Katy, Texas, played a major role in T-More's latest title defense. He scored a game-high 30 points and went 15-for-16 from the foul line, including 8-for-8 in the second half when the Chancellors took charge.
St. Thomas More's best basketball came after its only bad stretch of the day when Bridgton turned a seven-point deficit (4235) into a seven-point lead (54-47) during a four-minute period when the Wolverines made five 3-pointers — three by Bruce Saintilus — to force Quinn into calling a timeout.
But as quickly as T-More's defense giveth, it taketh ... suffocating Bridgton with full-court pressure that resulted in a 13-0 run that ended with a thunderous, one-handed baseline dunk by Garcia and a three-point play by 6-6 Derrius Ward that gave the Chancellors a 60-54 lead with 8:25 remaining.
Bridgton would get no closer than five and St. Thomas More would put this one out of reach with a seven-point run that included four straight free throws by Garcia after Bridgton coach Whit Lesure was hit with a technical for protesting a foul that sent Garcia to the line.
"This isn't like high school," Garcia said. "Coach JQ runs this like a college program and he wants to get us ready for the next level, so he really pushes us."
Point guard Elijah Perry, whose family was visiting from Lawrence, Kansas., added 14 points for the Chancellors — 11 in the second half — while Ward had 12 and Cornell commit Christopher Manon finished with nine points, six rebounds and six steals.
Saintilus and Myles Corey scored 17 points apiece for Bridgton, which will get another crack at the Chancellors next Friday, this time in the first round of the Bridgton Winter Classic in Maine. c.banning@theday.com