GROTON, Mass. – It was mid-December, but it had the feeling of March. The gym was packed, not only with students from the schools (especially the home team) but also a few college coaches and players’ parents. The anticipation was there as well, and it was a large presence.
St. Mark’s and Lawrence Academy have ruled NEPSAC Class C of late. Last year, it was thought that for the third straight year it would come down to those two schools, but Holderness pulled off a stunning upset in Lawrence’s gym in the quarterfinals and won another game before bowing out to St. Mark’s in the final. This year, those two schools figure to be the top contenders again, so it was easy to understand why there was a big crowd on hand.
The game didn’t disappoint, although there were points where each team looked like it could run away with from the other. Lawrence jumped on St. Mark’s early, but never built up a lead well into the teens before taking a 37-30 halftime lead. St. Mark’s blitzed them to start the second half with a 16-2 run, but never truly had control of it.
And while Shabazz Napier will make headlines from scoring a game-high 34 points in a well-played game the home team won by a 76-72 margin, the junior point guard wasn’t just trying to pass the look test of a good teammate when he said the entire team needed to be mentioned in this one. Napier may have hit clutch shots and turned the game around in the second half with a number of steals that turned into layups and fouls, but he had plenty of good help and is making players better.
Take Marcus Grant. The junior is a football star and getting ACC interest on the gridiron, but he’s also been a fine player on the hardwood as a great teammate. He always wants to guard the opponent’s best player, and for a lot of the game he did just that with super sophomore Alex Murphy of St. Mark’s. Murphy scored just eight points and never really got untracked, as Grant denied him the ball often in the early going and otherwise bothered him. Later, when he picked up other players, Grant made life difficult for them. He scored nine points and was a little out of character on some of the shots he took on offense, but there was no question of his value in the win.
Denzel Brito wasn’t the happiest with his play, but the senior guard had 16 points and had a big hand in their early lead. He also made a few good passes and continued to show improvement with his non-scoring skills, as his ability to put the ball in the hole has long been established.
Perhaps no player other than Grant epitomized how Lawrence won this game more than Dan Giovanchini. He stands just 6’3″ and was up against a number of taller players, but it seemed like every time you looked, he was right there in the middle of the play. He rebounded, he defender, he played physical ball, and late in the game when there were scrambles for loose balls, who was right in the middle of it? Giovanchini, of course. Napier, Brito, Grant and even senior post player Sarkie Ampim get most of the pub, but they don’t win this game without Giovanchini’s play.
The big reason St. Mark’s made a run in the second half was an ability to finally use their size advantage. For much of the first half, they struggled to get the ball inside for scoring chances, but in the second half, they lived by getting it into Melsahn Basabe. The Siena-bound forward had 29 points, getting a number of post baskets and a few fouls along the way, as he was unstoppable for a lot of the second half. Nate Lubick, who handled the ball a fair amount, got his share of inside baskets en route to 21 points.
The fact that Lubick handled the ball as often as he did was in part because it was a tough outing for starting point guard Jaymie Spears. It’s fair to say that Spears has been tested since arriving at the school, as before this a bad ankle slowed him at their open gyms in September and the football team went 3-5. In this game, the sophomore struggled with turnovers, although he seemed to get better early in the second half. All told, this wasn’t his best game, but he’ll bounce back as he’s shown himself to be a tough player before.
Lawrence Academy won’t make a return trip to Southborough during the regular season. That means if these two schools are to meet again this year, it will be in March, the time everyone expects them to meet when the stakes are higher. By then, they will have already played a game that had the feeling of March.
