Bears roar past Bengals to win title
TechBoston went into last night’s Boston City League championship game against Brighton looking to complete some unfinished business.
After losing to the Bengals in the city finals last season, the Bears were extra motivated to turn the tables this time around. And did they ever, as TechBoston closed out the final three quarters on a 50-29 run to come away with a convincing 61-46 win.
Tournament MVP Walter Dew-Hollis finished with 23 points, 10 rebounds, six blocks and four steals, while Maurice Works chipped in with 17 points and Shamar Moore added six points and six assists in the victory.
“(Winning) starts and ends with defense, it’s what we’ve been doing all year,” said TechBoston coach Johnny Williams, whose team will be the top seed in the upcoming Division 2 South tournament. “This (championship) has been a long time coming and tonight we were ready. I’m so happy for the kids, for TechBoston, and for everyone in Dorchester — they all deserve it.”
Behind the inside presence of Quincy Taylor (14 points, nine rebounds) and Jerrod Clark, Brighton fought its way to a 17-11 lead after eight minutes and maintained a 2623 lead at halftime. But Dew-Hollis opened the third quarter with a driving bucket before a Javon Pierre steal and lay-in gave the Bears their first lead of the night at 27-26.
Four consecutive free throws by Dew-Hollis made it a 31-26 game, and after Messiah Murchison completed a three-point play to bring Brighton to within one, TechBoston closed out the quarter on a 7-0 run, which extended the lead to 40-33.
The Bengals sliced the deficit to 40-35 on the first possession of the fourth quarter, but a Pierre jumper and a 3-pointer and driving layup by Works pushed the lead to 47-35. With 3:30 to go, a bucket from Brighton’s Johnny Ortiz cut it to single digits, but Dew-Hollis immediately drained a trey to ignite a game-ending 10-2 run that handed TechBoston its first city title since the late 1980s.
“This was a tough tournament, and coming out today we had to play strong,” said Dew-Hollis, who scored his 1,000th-career point in Wednesday’s BCL semifinal win over Burke. “We were stronger than (Brighton) and because of that we came away with the championship.”