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Andover drops season opener

Saturday, December, 11 By Jeff Hamrick

LOWELL — A high school basketball coach never knows what he’ll get in a season opener. What Andover’s David Fazio got yesterday afternoon was a Clint Eastwood movie.

Despite never trailing by more than one point for all but the final 17 seconds, the Golden Warriors let their Merrimack Valley Conference opener slip away in a 50-47 defeat to Lowell at the Tsongas Center.

Andover displayed a little good (forcing 20 turnovers in a decent defensive effort), a little bad (converting only nine of its 19 free throw attempts after intermission) and some downright ugly (missing all 23 shots from the field in the second and fourth quarters combined).

“The defense is ahead of the offense obviously,” said Fazio, beginning his 23rd year at the school. “I thought we did some pretty good things defensively, but the object of the game is to stop the opposing team and then score on the other end. We had so many opportunities to score, but whether it was first-game nerves or execution or coaching — you name it. Zero-for-23; is that bad shooting or nerves. I don’t know.”

The Warriors jumped on the Red Raiders with a strong fast-break offense that led to Andover making each of its first four field-goal attempts en route to a quick 12-7 lead. They went on to take a nine-point advantage twice in the second quarter before Lowell scored the final nine of the opening half, forcing a 24-24 tie at intermission.

Andover was unable to build on its lead by missing all 12 of its second-quarter field-goal attempts despite forcing turnovers on five straight Lowell possessions at one point.

“I think our man-to-man defense will be as good as anybody in the state,” Fazio said. “That’s always been our mainstay and what we’ve hung our hat on. Defensively, I’m pretty happy. But offensively, we’re timid, we’re nervous and we didn’t execute. That’s what we’re going to have to work on.”

It was more of the same in the second half with Andover holding slim leads much of the time. Lowell, took a one-point lead four times, but the Warriors quickly reclaimed the advantage each time, including a 47-46 lead on a free throw by Brian Salvesen with 1:14 left. But the Raiders scored on a put back by Jonathan Perez with 52 seconds remaining to take the lead for good.

“We had the game,” Fazio said. “We’re up one and then we give up an offensive rebound.”

The Warriors, who missed three 3-point tries over the final 20 seconds, hurt their chances with poor 30-second clock management down the stretch that led to one shot-clock violation and two desperation shots from long range — including once after a time out.

“We’re trying to run stuff and we’re trying to execute,” Fazio said. “We just have to play. Maybe we should have run some five-man motion and just played. But this is a good experience for the kids.”

Joe Bramanti scored a team-high 16 points for the Warriors and Craig Luschenat added 11 — seven of which came in the first 86 seconds.