Staples tops Warde for 1st finals berth since 1937
STAMFORD — Chris Zajac, the 6foot-8 senior center on the Staples’ boys basketball team, was right to the point.
“That’s the greatest win in Staples’ history,” Zajac said, without hesitation.
It would indeed be a tall task to find one that comes even close.
Trailing by as many as 18 points in the fourth quarter, Staples staged an improbable comeback, eventually defeating Fairfield Warde 57-55 in overtime in the CIAC Div. II semifinals Wednesday night at Westhill.
The Wreckers started the rally with a 12-0 run, tied the game at 48-48 on a 3point bucket by Caleb Smith with 37 seconds remaining in regulation, and eventually won it when Adam Udell stole an inbounds pass and scored with 13 seconds left in OT.
Seventh-seeded Staples (21-6) advanced to the state final for the first time since FDR was president. The Wreckers won the 1937 championship, 26-23 over Farmington.
Now in 2023, they’ll square off against top-seeded St. Bernard in the final at Mohegan Sun Arena on Sunday at 6:15 p.m..
David Goldshore, who took over as Wreckers head coach last June after five seasons as an assistant, was emotional while talking about the win.
“When you have a great group, you just never know what’s going to happen,” Goldshore said. “They kept fighting, they were confident and I’m at a loss for
words. These kids deserve to take the trip and play in that arena, they just do. After a night like this, they’ve earned it. I can’t be any happier for them.”
Warde (20-5) appeared to be well on its way to the final during the first three quarters, building leads of 23-14 at halftime and 38-20 early in the fourth quarter.
But the Wreckers turned on the press and began to force numerous turnovers. They also hit five of their six 3-pointers in the fourth quarter and OT, and held a 3717 advantage in the final 10 minutes.
“I felt like we got a little stagnant and complacent with the lead,” Warde coach Ryan Swaller said. “We kind of waited instead of continuing to attack, especially with the pressure. That’s why you play 32 minutes. You don’t win at halftime or in three quarters, you’ve got to win in four. Unfortunately tonight, Staples came out and they beat us. That’s what it comes down to.”
Staples again had several scorers in double digits, with Zajac leading with 17. Cody Sale scored 12, and Gavin Rothenberg had 10, including eight in the fourth quarter. Sale and Smith had six each in the fourth, when the Wreckers scored 28 points, nearly half their final total.
“It’s such a mental game,” Goldshore said. “We couldn’t buy a basket in the first three and a half quarters and then one person hits a shot and the next person hits a shot.”
“You never want to go down without a fight,” Zajac said. “We came out pressing in the fourth quarter and that turned us around. They couldn’t really handle the pressure, we got a couple of steals and went from 17 to 10 and we just played basketball from there.”
Zajac also came up with a couple of late defensive gems, blocking a shot by Warde’s Jack Plesser as time expired in regulation, and then getting good pressure on the ball at the end of overtime, denying the Mustangs a good look at the hoop.
Warde had a chance to win it late in OT, but Udell knocked the ball free on the inbounds pass.
“As soon as he threw it in, I jumped around him on the side and I was able to get a hand on it and tip it away,” Udell said. “He fell down, an open layup, and I just put it in.”
Swaller said the focus for the Mustangs is now on the season as a whole.
“We focused on the success that we had this year, getting 20 wins,” Swaller said. “That’s a program-changer. They are on the top of the mountain of Warde basketball right now. They set the bar really high.”
Player of the game
Chris Zajac, Warde: The senior led the Wreckers’ scoring with 17 points, and made several key defensive stops, none bigger than his block in the closing seconds of regulation.
Quotable
“We were talking about temp the whole game and I didn’t think we had the ability to profess for 32. In retrospect, I probably should’ve had us press a little bit earlier. We just kept going with it, and the momentum, and the crowd.” — Staples coach David Goldshore