Seahorses hold off Raiders
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ALBERT J. MARRO / RUTLAND HERALD |
Toolbox
By Bob Fredette Staff Writer - Published: December 4, 2009
The Rutland High School and Burlington boys basketball teams don't know much about themselves yet, except that neither is about to run from a fight.
Burlington got the early lead and never lost it, but had to survive repeated runs by Rutland during a 67-61 Seahorse victory in both teams' season opener at Keefe Gym Thursday night.
Both teams graduated the bulk of their star power, but Burlington's marquee player is back and Joe O'Shea showed he still deserves that label with 20 points. He was among five Seahorses to hit 3-pointers and one of several to come up with big baskets when Rutland made runs at the lead in the second half.
"Off the top of my head, I remember Brandon Corriveau, Connor O'Shea and Joe (O'Shea) making a couple of those and they were huge, because Rutland had made a big 3 that cut it to four or five," Seahorses coach Matt Johnson said.
"Tonight was a good test for us because Rutland had the ability to go big and when they got into foul trouble they went small. So it was good for us to see different styles from them."
Joe O'Shea, the most talented player from a team that went undefeated until last year's Division I finals, had 11 points in the first period as the Seahorses shot out to an 18-8 lead. That lead was extended to 14 points in the second period before the Raiders got their offense organized.
As of the middle of period two, Rutland found some inside scoring from Alex Snyder that opened up the offense.
Snyder (12 points) and Andrew Borkowski (16 points) showed considerable improvement over their level of play last year and kept the Raiders in the game while veteran guard Troy Davine weathered a slow start. Davine had 16 points and Mike Triller 12, but it was the outside shooting of Borkowski (who fouled out in the fourth) and Snyder's power moves inside that were the meat and potatoes of the Raiders offense.
"We certainly found out a lot about ourselves tonight and there were a couple of situations in the second quarter where we could have gone one way or the other," Rutland coach Mike Wood said.
"There were a lot of bright spots but we've got a long way to go."
Snyder had six points at the end of the second period and Davine a running one-hander at the buzzer to close the gap to 33-26 at halftime. When Borkowski hit a trey to open the second half, it was a 33-29 game.
But within seconds, Connor O'Shea responded in kind to touch off a game of leapfrog. On successive possessions Borkowski shook free underneath to score off darts by Snyder and Davine to make it 36-33, then Grady Jackson (13 points) and O'Shea had treys in a 12-4 run that made it 48-37 through three periods.
With 4:15 left, Snyder's layup off Brian O'Rourke's dish cut it to 53-48 and within seconds, Joe O'Shea answered with another trey. Rutland got a three-point burst on a free throw by Snyder and a bucket by Davine when Snyder missed his second freebie, then Burlington came up with a 7-0 run. That made it 63-51 with 1:30 left, but Rutland had an 8-0 run that forced Burlington put away the game at the foul line.
Thursday's game was the first of two between these teams. They will meet again in Essex next week in the North-South Challenge.
And fans will have a good idea of what to expect.
bob.fredette@rutlandherald.com
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