By STEPHEN MARTELLUCCI
LYNN — In their first game of the Spartan Classic at St. Mary’s High School in Lynn, the Lynnfield High boys’ basketball team steamrolled Lowell Catholic, 83-51, on Sunday afternoon.
The 83 points is a season-high for the Pioneers.
“This was the best game we played all year,” stated Pioneers head coach John Bakopolus. “We jumped on them right from the beginning and we shot the ball very well.”
Lynnfield improved to 14-5 overall with the victory while the Crusaders fell to 9-10.
The Lynnfield bench got a lot of playing team in the second half as they comfortably led, 44-19, at the half.
The highlight of the game for the Pioneers was that, in the third quarter, Alex Fleming scored his 1,000th career point as the game stopped momentarily to allow the team to celebrate.
“It was a really cool moment,” said Bakopolus.
Fleming finished the day with 15 points and 12 rebounds.
Grant Neal was the Pioneers’ top scorer with a season-high 20 points. Madux Iovinelli was second with 18 while Zack Pincus added 11.
In their last Cape Ann League game of the season on Feb. 12, the Pioneers doubled up Triton, 64-32, up in Byfield.
Lynnfield completed the season sweep over the Vikings as they won the first meeting, 67-40, back on Jan. 17.
“Just like the Lowell Catholic game, we controlled it from the start,” said Bakopolus, as his squad led 29-15 at the half.
Lynnfield finished at 13-3 in the CAL as they ended up in second place in the CAL Kinney Division behind Newburyport.
Fleming and Iovinelli both recorded double-doubles as Fleming had 17 points and 12 rebounds while Iovinelli scored 16 points to go with 12 boards.
Lynnfield wrapped up the regular season playing Lincoln-Sudbury in the title game of the Spartan Classic on Feb. 18 (results not available at press time).
On Feb. 23, they will scrimmage Manchester-Essex on the road at 1 p.m. to get a tune-up game for the upcoming Division 3 state tournament that will start next week.
The seedings will come out on Saturday.
On Tuesday, Lynnfield was ranked No. 15 in the MIAA Div. 3 power rankings. The top 32 schools at the end of the regular season automatically qualify for the tournament.