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O'Connell joins 1,000-point Club as Prep beats Classical

Monday, January, 14 By Jean DePlacido
Correspondent

For much of last night's game, the shots were not falling for St. John's Prep senior Ryan O'Connell.

Needing 18 points to reach 1,000 for his career, O'Connell was forcing shots that weren't falling early on. But with the contest on the line, the Bowdoin College-bound senior from Ipswich delivered.

O'Connell got hot at the right time, helping to hold off a furious rally by visiting Lynn Classical to lead the Prep to a 77-68 home victory.

Finishing the game with 23 points, O'Connell nailed a baseline bomb for three points with 3:21 remaining to give him 1,001 career points. That was during a run of 11 straight points scored by O'Donnell, who finished the game with five 3-pointers.

"Before the game started I really wasn't concerned about it, but (once it started) I couldn't stop thinking about getting to 1,000," O'Connell admitted.

"I just wanted to get it out of the way and concentrate on helping us win. It's good the rest of the team contributed so much to get us out to a strong lead, because my shots weren't falling. We all knew Classical would come back, and I'm just glad my 3-pointers started falling. We really needed a spurt at the end."

Late in the third quarter, O'Connell buried a trey and two foul shots to give the Eagles (4-3) a 60-44 lead heading into the final eight minutes of play.

Sophomore Jarell Byrd led the Rams' fourth-quarter comeback with a dozen of his 20 points in the final quarter. After the Rams went on a 14-2 run to cut the Prep's deficit to four points (62-58) following a pair of Cam Smith baskets, Prep coach Danny Letarte called a timeout to settle his team down with four and a half minutes remaining.

"We always have great games with Lynn Classical," said Letarte. "They are very quick, especially in transition, and scored so many points off that. We knew when we had that big lead at halftime they would come back. Jasper Grassa had no points and Byrd only had two at that point, but we knew that wouldn't last.

"We got off to a great start and were trying to hit the post early on, but then got away from it. We knew we needed to get the ball in Ryan's hands | even though he had missed some shots he doesn't usually miss and taken some shots he normally doesn't take."

With the game on the line O'Connell stepped up and put in the next 11 points for St. John's, including three straight bombs from three-point land.

When he reached the 1,000 point mark, the game was stopped while an announcement was made and he brought a bouquet of flowers up to his mother.

"Everybody was focused on winning, but we also wanted to help Ryan achieve his honor," said junior power forward Sam Baker, who had 22 hardfought inside points for St. John's and a team-high 10 rebounds.

"Ryan takes his shots, but also works with the big guys to get us shots. He passes some shots up to work the ball inside because he's a real team player."

O'Connell broke the Rams' backs with two more baskets to ensure the win. The Eagles also received big performances from sophomore point guard Brendon Felder of Lynn, who finished with 18 (16 in the first half) and four steals.

"We got off to such a slow start, and we were 6-for-21 on three's," said Classical coach Tom Grassa, whose team is now 7-3. "The Prep is so big and a tough team to rebound against. We only had 16 defensive rebounds, and usually we beat teams up on the glass. We average 29 rebounds per game, and tonight we had only 25. They got a lot of second effort baskets.

"That Felder had 18 big points, but we will take good things out of this. And we get them again at our place." The Prep JV's also won, 63-55.