Masco continued their reign of terror over the NEC last night with a defying win over a good Swampscott team, 65-48.
Despite the Big Blue keeping the lead under double digits for most of the first half, it seemed the Chieftains turned it up every time they got close and went on a run.
The Chieftains’ one-through-five combo of scorers and defenders was just too much for the Big Blue to handle, as junior guard Connor Chiarello wasn’t getting much help offensively.
Depth and versatility are two strengths that the Chieftains possess over the whole conference. They have easily the best starting five in the NEC and some great pieces off the bench.
The Chieftains shot poorly from the stripe in this one, but made up for it from behind the arc hitting seven triples.
Junior guard Cal Weidman has stepped into the role of one of the best 3-D players in the NEC. He plays stellar defense on some of the league’s best players, as he did on Chiarello last night, sniping down threes from the outside. He hit two first-half threes and finished with six points.
“Chiarello is a great player and works hard so he’s gonna get his every game,” said Weidman. “The key is stopping everyone around him and playing team D, that’s what gets the job done.”
The Chieftain scoring was led by none other than junior captain and point guard Jimmy Farrell. Fans found it so entertaining to watch these two top dog guards, Farrell and Chiarello, battle it out, each finishing with the game high of 26.
However, Farrell was much more efficient and did a better job getting to his spot, slicing to the rim, and hitting his favorite, the pull-up middie. He also added his season-high six rebounds and a couple of steals. Farrell has taken quite a step this season and is splashing onto the Massachusetts basketball scene with his stout averages of 17.8 points per game, six assists, and three steals.
“We didn’t practice Monday so we had to mentally prepare ourselves and be locked in for this important conference game. I knew that Swampscott had some pretty good guard play and I knew I had to match it and play my best on both sides of the court for us to pull out with the win,” said Farrell. “We were moving the ball well all game and knocked down some key shots throughout the game but we had a lot of missed bunnies that were created off of great looks. The movement is there but we just need to keep making the easy ones so we don’t have to worry about the difficult shots.”
Farrell’s co-captain, senior sharp-shooter Devin O’Brien, was money from deep in this game, notching three treys from downtown including two huge ones in the fourth quarter, ending his night with 14 points and six assists.
“I think it was mostly us playing as a team, we had a couple of guys in foul trouble throughout the game, and performing on a short week it was definitely the defense and teamwork that kept the distance between us and them,” said O’Brien.
Masco now has two huge NEC Dunn division games to prepare for in order to lock up the division.
“We are on a big run here and have two big road games in the next week against two tough teams in big environments so we just have to prepare at practice as hard as possible,” said O’Brien.
Even in a game where junior starter Jamason Vella and sophomore starter Thomas Denton were limited to only a few buckets, many players stepped up and these two showed they bring so much more to the table than just their scoring ability. Vella snagged down a season-high 14 rebounds and Denton grabbed seven of his own.
“Hats off to Swampscott; they play extremely hard. It was great to see the team come together and finish the game strong on a night when we felt like nothing could go right,” said head coach Jaycob Morales. “We put ourselves in positions where the game could’ve gone either way at any point in time but, like usual, we made some big plays in the third and fourth quarter that put us in a position where we had a comfortable lead and we were able to finish the game. We must ensure that we continue to play our style of basketball and continue to build a culture. We want to ensure that we can never put ourselves in a position where our back’s against the wall again.”
The Chieftains now must start preparing for the Tanners, who gave them a tough first-half last contest but fell off the wagon in the second, resulting in a Chieftain blowout. This crucial NEC game will occur Friday at seven in the Peabody High School gym.