Pats too much for Warriors
Davies wins first playoff game in 18 seasons
LINCOLN — The Davies Tech boys basketball team’s playoff drought was old enough to drive.
The streak won’t be going off to college. The Patriots entered the truncated season having not played a playoff game since dropping a Division II quarterfinal to Exeter-West Greenwich in 2003. Thanks to the play of senior all-division wing Raheim Rainey and a talented cast of upperclassmen, the Patriots cruised to their first undefeated regular season and earned the No. 1 seed in the D-III tournament.
Davies secured a spot in its first semifinal thanks to a dominant performance Sunday afternoon against a young Central Falls squad. The No. 1 Patriots led by just four points early in the second quarter, but they scored 12 straight points to open up a comfortable advantage. Junior Jean Preira netted a game-high 20 points, while Rainey added 17 and Antonio Cabral chipped in with 16 in a 71-49 victory at Gaskin Alumni Hall.
“This means a lot,” Cabral said. “We’ve been working hard all year and getting better every day in practice to do this. We have a lot of good players on this team. Raheim likes to let the game come to him and he likes to get his teammates involved because that makes us better.”
“We work hard all the time and we put in our time during practice and after practice to reach our goals,” Preira said. “One of our goals was to get Raheim to a thousand points, but our other goal was to have a good season because Davies hasn’t had a good season in a while. We haven’t been in the playoffs for about 18 years.”
Davies Tech (11-0) knows the road to the D-III title game next weekend at Rhode Island College goes through Gaskin Alumni Hall. The Patriots will face another team full of talented Pawtucket kids, No. 5 Blackstone Valley Prep, in the semifinals after the Pride knocked off No. 4 St. Patrick’s Sunday afternoon in Providence. The contest will take place Wednesday night at 5 o’clock.
“These kids weren’t alive the last time we were in the playoffs,” Davies Tech coach Bob Morris said. “This is just great for the school, especially with COVID this year. We have kids who couldn’t come out this year who played the last couple of years. These kids showed up every day and followed all the rules and all the protocols.”
Central Falls (4-4) started the season weeks later than everyone else in the state and still found a way to make it to the playoffs thanks to three wins in the Warriors’ final four regular-season games. They downed No. 9 Scituate in the preliminary round of the playoffs before running into the Patriots.
Junior Jaden Alvarado led the Warriors with 18 points, including three 3-pointers. Fellow junior Chunn Anderson added 11 points.
“We played six games in 10 days with just one practice in between and we couldn’t be in the gym Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays,” Central Falls coach Jeff Doucette said. “I just told them ‘You guys have no idea how proud we are as a community with what you guys were able to do.’ It was mental toughness and our three seniors were really good leaders. We have a lot of young guys on the varsity and that bodes very well for us in the future.”
The Patriots, who hadn’t played since eking out a twopoint road win over Ponaganset on Feb. 20, built a five-point advantage after the first quarter, but the lead was just four 2:30 into the second quarter after CF senior Warner Galva scored. The No. 8 Warriors then had a 3-pointer rim out before the Patriots took complete control of the contest.
Over the next three minutes Rainey and Cabral combined to lead the Patriots on a 12-0 run to extend the lead to 16 points. Alvarado knocked down a 3-pointer to stop the run, but the damage had been done and the Warriors never recovered.
“When the game started to get close, we started talking more and talking on defense and in the huddle about getting everyone in the game,” Cabral said. “We went on the court and did what we needed to do.”
“We started to trust each other and we needed to put in the work,” Preira said. “We also cut down our turnovers and started to put pressure on them to make mistakes. We were able to capitalize on that and score a lot of points. We just need to keep putting the work in and we’ll keep doing well.”
The Patriots led by 13 at halftime, but the lead was just 11 after baskets by Alvarado and Anderson. Rainey and Cabral built the lead up to 17 points after the third quarter. The Warriors received solid performances from Jaidan Perry and Lorens Brantley in the second half, but the up-tempo Patriots were far too good.
“Davies has explosive athletes and they can score in bunches,” Doucette said. “I told the guys that we had so many opportunities where the ball went in, but it just didn’t go our way. We could’ve made it a better game. They just killed us on the boards, especially Cabral. He outhustled us and outworked us down low.”