RallyNorth.net

Tue, Dec 28, 2010 06:00 PM @ Neutral Location

Team	1	2	3	4	Final
North Andover	19	8	18	13	58
Greater Lawrence	11	13	13	13	50

Karalis leads North Andover past Reggies

Tuesday, December, 28 By Michael Muldoon
Staff writer

LAWRENCE — A lot of shooters have that one spot where they are deadly. Last night, Derek Collins has a lot of sweet spots.

The left and right corners are among them. With North Andover and Greater Lawrence Tech tied at 29-29 with 5:30 left in the third quarter, the sophomore sharpshooter hit 3-pointers from each corner on consecutive possessions to give the Scarlet Knights a 6-point lead it would never surrender.

North Andover (5-0) held off the scrappy Reggies, 58-50, to punch their ticket to the finals of the 36th annual Greater Lawrence Christmas Tourney. It’s the Scarlet Knights’ first berth in the finals since 1998. The Knights, who’ll face Andover Thursday at 8 p.m. in the finale, are eying their first title since 1991.

Collins finished with 18 points while 6-3 junior Zach Karalis struck for 23 points and 13 rebounds. Donald Celestin led the Reggies with 17 points.

“Coach (Mike McVeigh) tells me good shooters shoot,” said Collins, who arrived at the school with a ton of advance publicity after dominating the middle school and AAU ranks. “It always feel good when it goes in.”

They went in four times last night.

Few are picking the Knights to beat Andover, which stunned Central Catholic. But that’s OK with Collins and Co.

“If we play our game, we can beat anybody,” he said. “It’s always exciting to be in the finals.”

The Reggies were itching for some of that excitement and wouldn’t give an inch.

After the Collins bombs, the Reggies answered with a jumper from Joey Rivera-Falcone (14 points) and a layup from Jeremy Zamora off a nice Rivera-Falcone dish.

But NA wasn’t going to let this one slip away. Karalis, a coach’s dream with his skills and smarts, sliced to the basket and went to the left hand for a gorgeous lay-up.

Isaiah Nelsen followed up his own miss and canned a long jumper to make it 41-33 with 2:20 left in the period.

The Reggies, who proved throughout they weren’t just happy to be in the semis for the second time in 24 years, would never get closer than six points after that.

“This feels great,” said 29th-year coach McVeigh, whose smile let you know his 445th career win was one he’ll savor for awhile.

“Those early years, we got there (the finals) a few more times. The adage about taking it for granted (applies here).”

It might have been nice to take a comfortable lead and enjoy the moment. But that wasn’t going to happen.

“There wasn’t a part of me that ever thought the game was out of reach,” he said. “They battled.”

Collins didn’t hesitate to fire when he was open deep in the corners.

Did McVeigh want his club to work the clock?

“Yes!” he said with a laugh. He added, “It’s awfully hard not to tell a shooter to shoot at any time in the shot clock.”

McVeigh isn’t worried about the naysayers who may have already handed the title to Andover.

He said, “We don’t want to do anything but play North Andover basketball the best we can.”

That’s certainly worked well through the first five games.