BELMONT HOLDS OFF ARLINGTON 71-67; ADVANCES TO NORTH SEMIFINAL
By Jim Baldwin
Belmont, MA. 3/1/19. With two minutes left in the first half of Friday night’s boys basketball Division 2 North quarterfinal, top ranked Belmont found themselves in an unusual position—down 13 points to their nemesis neighbor Arlington, who seems to save their best performances especially for Belmont.
Spy Ponder senior co-captain Sam Swift had just hit his second of four three pointers lifting the visitors to a 34-21 lead. Meanwhile the Marauders were ice cold missing seven of their eight shots up to that point in the quarter.
Shocked? Surprised? Not according to Belmont coach Adam Pritchard.
“The game was everything I thought it would be,” Pritchard said. “I know how good Arlington is and what a great coach John (Bowler) is. I know that the hardest game in a tournament is your first one. Arlington already had theirs while we had to sit around waiting (with a first round bye). So, it was what I expected.”
But as Belmont has done so many times this year, including just two weeks ago when they were down late at Arlington, they responded.
Junior sharpshooter Mac Annus (21 points, four treys and five for five from the line), who apparently has never seen a long range shot he doesn’t like, connected from the right corner, was fouled and converted the free throw for an unusual four point play that wakened the Marauders and started them on their way to a tight 71-67 victory.
Twenty seconds later he hit another, this one from NBA range to the left of the circle.
Teammate and co-captain Ben Sseruwagi (10 points) followed with consecutive, difficult lefty lay-ups, one of them a three-point play, and in under two minutes the 13-3 Belmont run closed the gap at halftime from 13 to just three at 37-34.
It looked like the momentum had shifted back to Belmont, but nemeses don’t go away that easily. Arlington held on, and with two minutes left in the third, Swift’s back door lay-up staked the Spy Ponders to a 46-41 lead.
Then Danny Yardemian, the game’s high scorer with 30 points, took over.
The Belmont senior co-captain, went on a two minute trade-mark tear, scoring 12 straight points, the last two on a difficult rainbow floater in the lane as the quarter-ending buzzer sounded. By the time he was done Belmont had regained the lead 53-50 and stayed ahead for the rest of the game.
Arlington Sophomore Myles Hess’ three point play on an offensive rebound put-back brought the Spy Ponders within a basket at 55-53, but Marauder sophomore, Tim Minicozzi (10 points) answered immediately with a three point dagger to push it back to five.
The Spy Ponders resourceful point guard, sophomore Brendan McNamara, who led Arlington with 15 points, hit a deep two from the left corner to keep things interesting at 64-60 with 56 seconds left, but Annus was clutch sinking four free throws down the stretch to make it 68-60 13 seconds later, and Belmont held on for the win.
Yardemian said, “We’ve known a lot of those guys since 6th or 7th grade. They play us well every time. We knew we’d have to get through them, if we wanted to move on in this tournament. It was a tough win.”
Uncharacteristically, Yardemian was only nine of eighteen from the line. Pritchard said, “He’s made hundreds of clutch free throws in his life already. I have total confidence in him. I told him, the next time there’s a technical foul, he’s going to the line.”
Arlington got big contributions from Swift and Hess each with 14 points.
Senior co-captain James Gascoigne added nine and senior Stephen McGillivray eight for the Spy Ponders.
Belmont is now into the North semifinal waiting for the winner of the Reading/Gloucester game. The semifinal site and date is yet to be determined.