TECH BOSTON SNAPS BELMONT STRING IN COMCAST FINAL
By Jim Baldwin
Woburn, MA. 2/18/19. It finally happened.
The Belmont boys basketball team, winners of 19 straight, ran into an opponent that welcomed the opportunity to run with them, and the Tech Boston Bears crossed the finish line five points ahead, 73-68 to win an entertaining Division 2 Comcast Classic final at Woburn Monday night.
It was a final of heavyweights, with Belmont holding the top ranking in Division 2 North and Tech ranked either one or two most of the season in the South.
Tech, also the defending Division 2 state champions, came out swinging with an uber aggressive, double teaming defense that forced the usually steady Marauders into seven first quarter turnovers (they didn’t have seven the entire game the night before against Hingham) that ignited the swift Bears running game and led to an 8 point 21-13 Tech lead at the end of the first quarter.
“They were very quick on defense,” said Belmont coach Adam Pritchard. “We’d take two dribbles and they’d have a second guy there. You’ve just gotta find the open guy in that situation and we didn’t do enough of that.”
But a 13 – 4 Belmont run sparked by junior guard Mac Annus who had nine of the 13, closed the deficit to one point 31-30 at the half.
The teams battled back and forth through the second half with Tech in the lead for the majority but never by more than eight points.
With two minutes to go senior co-captain Danny Yardemian’s three-pointer brought Belmont to within a point at 61-60.
But Tech senior guard Lyron Bennet, the tournament’s most valuable player, answered with an acrobatic driving layup in traffic. His junior guard teammate Shamar Browder followed with a floater in the lane pushing the Bears’ lead to 65-60 with 45 seconds left, and Belmont could not recover.
Pritchard reflected, “They’re a very good team. We played pretty well. It was an excellent test for us.”
Annus led Belmont with 22 points, including a three from half court at the buzzer. Yardemian had 20, despite long stretches on the bench with foul trouble. Sophomore Tim Minicozzi had 13.
Bennet led the Bears with a game high 23, Browder had 17, and seniors Javon Pierre and Richard Burton chipped in 12 and 10.
The state tournament is next up for both teams. Belmont has a lock on the top seed on the North side of Division 2, while Tech will be either the one or two seed on the South side, so there could be a re-match in the near future.
“They’re defending state champs. Sure, we’d love another shot at them, but there are probably 16 or 17 other teams that would, too,” Pritchard said. “You gotta earn it.”