The Gaels (6-1) from Manhassett, Long Island, earned the right to meet Raleigh Wakefield (9-1), a 66-52 winner over East Chapel Hill, in the earlier semifinal, in Tuesday’s championship game. The Patriots (6-4) were to face East Chapel Hill (4-6) for third place. The results of all of Tuesday’s games will be in Friday’s edition of The Pilot.
St. Mary’s was led by guards Jon Ager and Gil Montalvo, who combined to hit 10 treys in 14 attempts, all in the first three quarters. Danny Green was the Gaels’ leading scorer with 23 points followed by Ager with 22. Antwon Murchison and Stephone Covington both scored 16 for Pinecrest.
While the plainly tight Patriots were missing open shots, the Gaels connected on their first three for a 7-0 lead.
Murchison got the home team on the board with a jump hook, but a few minutes later, an alley-oop pass from Montalvo became a dunk for Green making it 19-4. Midway through the second quarter, the Patriots were still stuck in park, trailing 39-11.
“We had some nice looks early,” Pinecrest coach Mike Apple said. “I think if we would have hit them, it might have broken the tension and gotten us going a little bit. When you’re missing easy shots like we were, it gets hard.”
After watching the New Yorkers score 109 points in Saturday’s game against Northern Durham, Apple opted to deviate from his preferred man defense for a zone. Montalvo, a slightly built 5-foot-8 sophomore, joined Ager in nixing that approach by going seven for seven from the field, including five treys. He finished with a season-high 19 points.
Montalvo said that after going scoreless in Saturday’s game he wanted to play well for head coach Tim Kluess, who was unable to make the trip because of the illness of a son.
“It was really hard yesterday because my coach wasn’t here,” he said. “It wasn’t the same without him. I shot about 100 shots at practice this morning and made about 85 of them. I just felt confident in my shot tonight. I wanted to do well for him.”
Green and Tyson Johnson, both 6-5, had gotten most of their combined 53 points in Saturday’s game on the inside, many off of fast breaks. That was a factor in the Patriots’ approach.
“You roll the dice sometimes,” Apple said. “The idea was to slow them down. I thought we did a good job of contesting the threes, but they knocked them down.”
Buoyed by a pair of dunks each by Murchison and Covington, the Patriots traded baskets with the Gaels until about midway through a third quarter that ended with the score 77-47.
Gael’s assistant coach Jim Fenton, who was sharing the head coaching duties with Maurice Barbaro, said he thought that the Patriots’ problem was in not being able to sustain its rallies.
“They (Patriots) picked up a lot of emotion from the dunks and from their crowd,” he said. “They just seemed to have difficulty sustaining it, that was all. They played their hearts out, and for me as a coach, that’s all I want from my kids.”
One of the 6-5 Murchison’s best efforts as a varsity player included 10 rebounds and five blocked shots. The Patriots connected on a respectable 28 of 61 shots from the field (46 percent) to a hot 39 of 60 (65 percent) for the winners. For the first time this season, the Patriots did not make a three-point basket.
East Chapel Hill was unable to match the diversified attack of Wakefield with its own strong inside game. Kerry Atkinson led four Wakefield players in double figures with 20 points as the Wolverines broke open a close game in the third quarter. Warren Roberson led East Chapel Hill with 15 points.
In one of the tournament’s most entertaining and competitive games, Hoke County defeated Northwood 91-88 in the first of Monday’s contests. Darryl Barnette and Ryan Fairly each scored 25 points for the Bucks and Eric Maynor added 14 to go with 10 assists. The Chargers were led in scoring by Rich Palmer 29, Terrence Johnson 23 and Trahern Chaplin 21. In the other early game, Northern Durham’s Corey Evans reached the 30-point mark for the second game in a row in his team’s 82-69 win over Leesville Road.
Tuesday’s slate included Hoke County (7-4) against Northern Durham (6-5) for fifth place and Leesville Road (2-9) against Northwood (4-4) for seventh place.
St. Mary’s — Montalvo 7 0-0 19, D. Green 10 3-4 23, Ager 8 1-2 22, Johnson 3 1-2 8, R. Green 4 0-0 8, Joseph-Pauline 5 4-5 14, Sabella 0 0-0 0, Fuents 0 0-0 0, Alexander 1 0-0 2, Fitts 1 0-0 2. Totals – 39 9-13 98.
Pinecrest — Hailey 1 0-0 2, McLaurin 3 0-0 6, McKnight 1 0-0 2, Covington 7 2-3 16, Murchison 8 0-4 16, Gribben 3 0-0 6, Chalmers 1 0-0 2, J. Lewis 0 0-0 0, Jones 1 0-0 2, Cain 0 0-0 0, Nelson 0 0-0 0, S. Lewis 2 0-0 4, Gatling 0 0-0 0, McSwain 1 0-0 2. Totals – 28 2-8 58.
Three-point goals: St. Mary’s 11 (Montalvo 5, Ager 5, Johnson); Pinecrest 0.
