Fri, Feb 01, 2019
07:00 PM @
Lowell
| Team |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
Final |
| North Andover |
18 |
9 |
7 |
12 |
46 |
| Lowell |
11 |
21 |
13 |
18 |
63 |
After slow start, Lowell rolls past Knights
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Friday, February, 01
By Jeff Hamrick
LOWELL — With four of the five Merrimack Valley Large squads knotted at 8-2 in conference play, being at full strength is more necessity than luxury as the squads close out the regular season with a second round of head-to-head play.
On the road Friday to face fourth-ranked Lowell, North Andover was a man down as starting senior center Garrett Murphy was sidelined for the third game since injuring his calf a week earlier in a win against Dracut.
The result for the seventh-ranked Scarlet Knights was a season-low point total as the Red Raiders rallied from an early hole for a run-away 63-46 victory.
“That’s part of it,” North Andover coach Paul Tanglis said of the injury. “But we didn’t really do anything to win that one after the first quarter. You have to come to play against a team like that or you’re going to lose.”
Darren Watson looked more than ready to play, scoring the game’s first 7 points and propelling the Knights (8-3 conference, 11-4 overall) into an 11-0 lead midway through the first. North Andover scored 18 points on 14 first-period possessions to take a 7-point lead into the second.
Matt Niejadlik, a 6-foot-4 senior center, proved more than capable filling in for Murphy, scoring six points with five rebounds and a steal in the first half. His put back with 2:46 left in the second put the Knights up 27-22. But North Andover obviously is more competitive with both big men available.
Tanglis said, “Obviously, having Garrett is going to help if he gets healthy. It’s going to be another week or two. We’re hoping he’ll finish up the regular season.”
But that Niejadlik putback would be North Andover’s final points of the half as Lowell (9-2, 15-2) used a 10-0 run to claim a 32-27 lead at intermission.
“They started pressuring us more,” said Tanglis, whose squad defeated the Red Raiders 68-61 earlier this year when Lowell was No. 1 in Eastern Mass. “They were pressuring the ball and denying everywhere. They took us out of what we wanted to do.”
With Rashawn Settles scoring 17 of his game-high 21 in the middle two periods, the Red Raiders kept extending the lead, opening their first double-digit advantage at 45-34 on a pair of Nate Siow free throws with 33 seconds left in the third.
In those two quarters, North Andover was just 5 of 26 from the floor, including 1 for 11 from beyond the arc.
“We turned the ball over like crazy,” Tanglis said. “And then we didn’t do much defensively. We gave them offensive rebounds and we let them get pretty much everything they wanted. It really swung one way after that first quarter.”
Deven Okowuga added 19 points for Lowell, which converted 47 percent (23 of 49) of its field goals.
“They do a tremendous job of just running their offense,” Lowell coach Robert Michalczyk said of North Andover. “They cause a lot of problems for a lot of teams. Playing at home certainly helps.
“We dropped a tough one (at MVC Small Billerica) that we don’t even talk about. We had a little bit of a cushion, but now it’s going to be a grind. Having that cushion would’ve been awesome.”
Game Statistics:
North Andover (46): Darren Watson 4 1-2 11, Gabe DeSouza 2 2-2 6, Kyle Moore 1 0-0 3, Jake McElroy 5 5-5 16, Matt Niejadlik 4 0-0 8, Brett Dunham 0 0-0 0, Jack Morin 1 0-0 2, Mikey Gorgoni 0 0-0 0, Kellan Murphy 0 0-0 0. Totals 17 8-9 46
Lowell (63): AJ Boykai 2 0-0 4, Justin Villanueva 2 0-0 4, Rashawn Settles 7 5-8 21, Deven Okowuga 6 3-4 19, Tyson Kong 0 0-0 0, Juan Nunez 2 0-0 5, Nate Siow 4 2-2 10. Totals 23 10-14 63
3-pointers: NA — Watson 2, Moore, McElroy; Lowell — Okowuga 4, Settles 2, Nunez
