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Central Catholic Raiders Boys Basketball '13-'14

Fri, Dec 13, 2013 07:00 PM @ Central Catholic
Team 1 2 3 4 Final
Methuen 15 12 3 13 43
Central Catholic 15 18 11 14 58

No Nelson, no problem; Cambio pumps in 21 in Central win

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Friday, December, 13 By Hector Longo

 

LAWRENCE — A week-long war of words on Twitter hit the hardwood on what felt a lot more like a March night here at the Memorial Gymnasium.

And much like we see in March, Central Catholic is nearly infallible on its home floor. Without injured Tyler Nelson, the Raiders controlled Methuen from start to finish in a 58-43 victory.

"I actually deleted my Twitter account this week, but I heard this place was going to be packed and it was," said Raider senior Nick Cambio, who worked the baseline brilliantly in a 21-point, 12-rebound night. "When we came out it was amazing. It was just like an Andover game."

The teams, with only a handful of practices under their belts, may not have been at the top of their games, but the atmosphere and the feelings between these fiercest of rivals, amped up the energy and might have even caused a bit of the nervousness.

"For having such a young group (Central's four top guards right now include a freshman, two sophomores and a junior), we had our moments," said Raider coach Rick Nault. "We talked about playing better defensively at halftime, and I thought we did that, holding them to 16 points int he second half."

Kevin Fernandez, the first Central freshman to start an opener since Jonathan Cruz, looked quite comfortable in the thick of things on both ends. And junior Alex Santos, making his first career start, produced off the dribble like he had never done before, scoring a dozen points with six assists.

The drive-and-dish game was unstoppable all night.

"Alex, A.J. (Pettway) and Kevin all penetrated tonight so well," said Cambio. "They drew the defense and got us easy hoops. Those easy hoops got me going early."

Meanwhile, in coach Anthony Faradie's debut, the Ranger offense simply slowed to a crawl under Central's pressure.

Scintillating sophomore jon Paulino paced the Rangers with 19 points, and Tim Galloway-Burke chipped in 11, but the Rangers certainly will need more consistency.

"I thought we competed pretty well in spurts, but we just really got beat on the boards," said Faradie, whose club goes from the frying pan here to a pressure cooker with Andover on Tuesday night.

"We're a young team with only one senior, and this was a great experience. We  have some fine-tuning to do."

 

Game Statistics:

Methuen (43): Mark Sicard 2 2-4 6, Jon Paulino 6 5-6 19, Tim Galloway-Burke 4 2-2 11, Keegan Lannon 1 0-0 2, Jimmy Njoroge 0 0-4 0, Jamal Rene 0 1-2 1, Cooper Hammel 1 2-2 4, Totals 14 12-20 43 

CC (58): A.J. Pettway 0 2-2 2, Alec Buresh 0 3-4 3, Anthony Crespo 1 1-2 3, Ryan Etter 0 0-1 0, Kevin Fernandez 3 0-3 6, John Homsey 0 1-2 1, Aaron Hall 4 0-0 8, Alex Santos 6 0-0 12, Nick Cambio 9 3-4 21, Pat Sullivan 0 2-2 2, Totals 23 12-20 58 

3-pointers:  M — Paulino 2, Galloway-Burke

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