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Both Central and St. John's know how to win the close ones

Saturday, March, 15 By Hector Longo
Staff writer

Rick Nault enters today's state title with one goal.

Don't be high-school coaching's version of Dan Marino.

"He lost his one chance in the Super Bowl, and everyone just figured he'd be back seven or eight more times," said Nault, who leads Central Catholic into action tonight at 7:30 at the DCU Center against Central/West champ St. John's of Shrewsbury in the Division 1 state title game.

"I want to win this one, because I may never get back here again."

Nault's crew enters the tourney finale on a six-win streak against a St. John's team that has to be considered the Cinderella story of 2007-08.

"I don't want to use the word surprised that we're here," said coach Bob Foley of his 21-6 Pioneers. "But it's just been a real, exciting run. We're a young team, that has consistently gotten better."

Foley, who has guided the Pioneers to four state title games in 25 years at the suburban Worcester school, has one state title under his belt. Back in 2000, his Pioneers defeated Boston English, 63-61, for the crown. That was a year after Central's only state championship of the modern era in 1999 when the Raiders beat Holy Name of Worcester.

His current rotation utilizes just two seniors, who account for a mere 12 points a game. After that, it's two juniors, including 6-foot-9 bruiser Matt LaBove, three sophomores and a promising freshman in sixth man Richard Rodgers, who has an 18-point game and a 14-point game in the postseason.

LaBove will have a tough matchup with 6-9 Central soph Carson Desrosiers, who gave BC High's 6-8 Boston University-bound center Jake O'Brien fits.

Central and St. John's are not strangers.

"We scrimmaged, our first scrimmage of the year, against them," said Nault. "They're a much better, much different team than they were then. This is a team, just like us, that deserves to be here."

From Nault's tone, Central handled St. John's fairly handily in the preseason scrimmage. But so much has happened to these Pioneers since then.

First, there was an early January boiler explosion that cost them their home gym the rest of the year.

"We played home games in three different places, real vagabonds," said Foley.

Then there was the season finale, a humbling 20-point loss to Fitchburg High.

St. John's came back to avenge that one, winning a 2-point squeaker in the Central semis. And that was after a pair of overtime decisions in the first two rounds of the tourney. In the Central finals, the Pioneers won in a romp, comparatively speaking, beating Marlboro 62-56. Wednesday in the state semis they tripped Longmeadow, 59-50.

Foley hopes that destiny can help hold his club together one more time.

If irony plays a role, the coach can be happy about one thing. Tonight should be a real home game.

"We went out to the Mullins Center at UMass and about 800 of our students made the trip," said Foley. "Most of our kids are from Worcester or Shrewsbury, so we expect to pack the place. I figure 900 of the 950 boys in our school will be at the game."

Central's Nault knows his club is tourney-hardened after three straight thrillers over Charlestown, Lowell and BC High.

"Getting here is a great accomplishment," said Nault. "But there's still some work to do. Our guys know that and want to take advantage of this."

St. John's may be the decided underdog, but that hasn't stopped them throughout the playoffs.

After the state semifinal game, Foley said, "We're not going there saying, 'Oh, boy, we're the big underdog.' We're going there and doing what's brought us this far and see what happens."