RallyNorth.net

Lawrence drops second straight

Sunday, January, 09 By Jeff Hamrick

LAWRENCE — Looking to rebound from an unexpected Merrimack Valley Conference loss at Haverhill, Lawrence instead once again floundered at times in a nonleague encounter.

No. 15 Acton-Boxborough broke open a close game early in the final quarter to run past No. 11 Lawrence 80-70 yesterday afternoon.

“We wanted to improve,” Lawrence coach Paul Neal said. “I thought we’d been in a slump as far as shooting and scoring and executing. I thought we executed better on offense, but I think it came at the expense of our defense.
“If you’d told me that we were going to score 70 points and still lose by 10, I wouldn’t have believed it. You can’t give up 80 points and expect to win many games.”

The Lancers (5-3) appeared ready to put their 54-51 loss to the Hillies behind them with a strong start, leading by as many as seven in the opening period. But the taller, lengthier Colonials switched to a 2-3 zone in the second quarter, a trend that would throw off the Lawrence offense throught the game.

“We wanted to mix up our defenses,” Acton-Boxborough coach Rick Kilpatrick said of the 2-3 that trapped several Lancers on the wings. “We’ve been playing a lot of man-to-man, but we do play some zone and that’s what we wanted to do ... I thought the guys did a very good job of adapting to that because we don’t use it very often.”

But despite falling behind by seven with less than 3 minutes remaining before halftime, Lawrence used a 9-2 run fueled by three Acton turnovers to tie the game at 38 on one of five 3-pointers by Dawrin Pereyra, who finished with a team-high 17 points.

The Lancers kept things cose, trailing by four entering the fourth quarter, but a 14-0 run by Acton (7-1) blew open the game.

Sam Longwell, who scored 16 of his game-high 30 in the second, and Wes Schroll, who added 27, powered the Colonials.

“We did a real good job of taking care of the basketball,” Kilpatrick said. “We said pass and look and don’t dribble so much. That got us a lot of easier shots. We don’t normally see that type of ball pressure (that Lawrence has) in our league.”

Lawrence, which got 16 points apiece from Jaylen Alicea and Yadoris Arias, returns to MVC play Tuesday at Billerica,  before a huge rematch against defending state champion Central Catholic on Friday. The Raiders already have a 69-56 victory over the Lancers in the opening round of the Greater Lawrence Christmas Tournament.

“it’s still early,” Neal said. “We’ve got some kids who just haven’t been a part of it before. We’ve got six or seven guys who really understand it, but you need more than that in order to play at the speed we want to.”