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North Andover Scarlet Knights Boys Basketball '08-'09

Fri, Jan 23, 2009 07:00 PM @ North Andover
Team 1 2 3 4 Final
Georgetown 14 15 7 14 50
North Andover 4 17 22 16 59

North Andover flexes its muscle, runs past Royals

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North Andover's Scott Ricketts puts up a shot over Georgetown's Chris Esposito during Friday nights game in North Andover. » Roger Darrigrand, Staff PhotographerMore photos

Friday, January, 23 By Hector Longo
Staff writer

NORTH ANDOVER - The inferiority complex building with every victory, North Andover High chose the proactive route.
"The papers, nothing. Nobody was even talking about us," said Knight junior Matt Sifferlen. "We kept hearing an awful lot about Georgetown, though. And that was pretty much our motivation."
With Sifferlen exploding for 15 of his game-high 19 points in the second half, North Andover, now 9-3, erased a a second-quarter 16-point hole with a ferocious 24-3 run. Handing Georgetown its first Cape Ann League loss, 59-50, the Knights protected their home turf and their sagging reputation among the CAL large elite.
"That's an excellent basketball team," said Knight coach Mike McVeigh of the now 10-2 Royals, who came in off a gigantic upset of Masconomet. "They were one point (a 54-53 loss to unbeaten Cathedral) from coming in here undefeated. Our guys got down early, but they never panicked and that was the key."
Indeed, the Royals looked like they'd run the Knights right out of their own gym early, even with super soph Jaymie Spears picking up two fouls in the first 29 seconds.
Julio Colon had nine and Josh Ingram seven as the Royals built their lead, but at 22-6 lead with 4:50 to intermission shrunk to 29-21 by the break.
The Knights were coming, and there was little Georgetown could do about it.
Sifferlen, Jeff Surette and Nick Fay all had hoops in the paint, forcing the Royals to collapse.
"Coach told us to go inside first, and that would make the threes come easier," said Sifferlen.
Suddenly, all those Knight bombs that clanged off in the first 16 minutes started tingling net.
Tommy O'Connell (10 points), Sifferlen and Scott Ricketts (9 points) all drilled triples, and North Andover led by seven headed to the stretch run at 43-36.
Georgetown, led by Spears with 15 points on 4 of 14 shooting, would get no closer than five the rest of the way.
"Our press wasn't effective and we just couldn't buy a basket in the third quarter," said Georgetown coach Mike Rowinski.

 

Game Statistics:

Georgetown (50): Ingram 4-1-10, Messman 1-0-2, J. Esposito 3-0-7, Spears 4-7-15, Ruh 0-1-1, C. Esposito 1-2-4, Colon 5-0-11, McKay 0-0-0, Perry 0-0-0. Totals 18-11-50

North Andover (59): Iovanella 2-0-4, O'Connell 4-0-10, Warden 2-0-4, Ricketts 3-0-9, Sheehan 2-0-4, Surette 1-1-3, Sifferlen 6-5-19, Fay 1-4-6, Blane 0-0-0, Bruynell 0-0-0. Totals 21-10-59

3-pointers: NA — Ricketts 3, O'Connell 2, Sifferlen 2; G — J. Espostio, Ingram, Colon

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