THE STUDENT SECTION was rocking during North Reading’s 69-40 win over Greater New Bedford in the First Round of the Div. 3 State Tournament on Friday night. (NRHS Athletics Photo)
Fall to Watertown after press time 59-42
By DAN NUNN
NORTH READING — The 15-seed NRHS boys’ basketball team rode suffocating defense enroute to their dominant 69-40 victory over No. 18 Greater New Bedford Vocational in the Round of 32 of the inaugural MIAA Division 3 Statewide Tournament.
Junior Andrew Boulas led all scorers with 24 and senior captain Cody Cannalonga had 21. NRHS forced 18 turnovers.
Head coach Joe Casey enjoyed the game.
“Terrific tournament atmosphere,” said Caset. “The crowd was awesome and really made a huge difference for us. This game clearly showed that we were deserving of a top 16 seed.”
North Reading got off to a slow start and didn’t score for the first 3 and a half minutes. They finally got on the board when Cannalonga got fouled attempting a three pointer and calmly hit all three foul shots to tie the game at 3-3. North Reading got rolling from there. Cannalonga went on to score 10 points in the period and the Hornets led 18-8 at the end of the first quarter.
The story of the second quarter was North Reading’s suffocating full court 2-2-1 press, and half court 2-3 zone defense. They held the normally potent GNB offense to six points in the quarter. NR got great efforts inside from senior forward John Jennings and junior forward Sam Morelli and the lead was 31-14 at the break.
Early in the third, GNB cut the lead under 10 twice but Boulas settled things down with a couple of 3’s to push the lead back to double digits. A late Logan Scribner three pushed the lead to 43-28 at the end of the third quarter.
The Hornets exploded in the fourth quarter outscoring GNB 26-12. They forced GNB into numerous turnovers that led to easy hoops for Boulas, junior Craig Rubino, and Resienberg and NRHS cruised to their 10th straight victory.
North Reading’s winning streak finally came to end when they fell to No. 2 Watertown on the road Tuesday night by a score of 59-42. A full story will appear next week.