Leominster uses late surge to advance

Source: Sentinel and Enterprise
Author: Chris Klingenberg

LEOMINSTER -- Holding onto a slim 54-53 lead over Marblehead going into the fourth quarter, the Leominster High boys basketball team was in need of a strong eight minutes if they wanted to avoid the upset and move on in the Division 2 state tournament.

The second-seeded Blue Devils turned up the defensive pressure which resulted in a 20-0 run to start the final quarter and Leominster continued to wear down 34th-seeded Marblehead en route to a 78-58 victory on Friday night.

"I told the kids at halftime that we were going to wear them down," said Leominster head coach Kevin Grutchfield, whose team improved to 18-3. "You could see that in the second half as they got tired, and we just did what we have been doing all year. It wasn't one guy it was a collective group effort."

Leominster will now host 15th-seeded Scituate, which defeated 18th-seeded Chicopee Comp, 63-60, in the round of 16 Tuesday evening at 6 p.m.

Junior Jack Dadah, who scored a team-high 22 points, hit big shots all night and played tenacious on-ball defense. Dadah drained back-to-back 3-pointers in the fourth quarter to help the Blue Devils push their lead to double digits at 65-53.

"(Dadah) really stepped up for us tonight," Grutchfield said. "He had some huge baskets and some huge 3-pointers."

After hitting five shots from behind the arc in the first half, Marblehead's Nick Lemmond (game-high 26 points) struggled in the second half. His lone 3-pointer over the final 16 minutes was his team's first points in the fourth quarter after going 6:30 without a point, which was a 20-0 run for Leominster.

In the first half, the teams went back and forth with Leominster holding a 22-17 lead after one quarter. Thanks in large part to the hot shooting of Lemmond who drained three consecutive shots from behind the arc, Marblehead was able to draw even at 40-40 heading in the locker room.

Leominster's Jayden Johnson (21 points) and Terrance McCormack (17 points) paced the offensive attack in the first half. McCormack had eight points in the first quarter on a pair of 3-pointers while Johnson finished the half with 14 points.

"The power rankings are very deceiving," Grutchfield said of Marblehead after the win. "That team won 15 games and they are in a very good Eastern Mass. conference. I knew this was going to be a tough game. We had eight days off, so that doesn't help but I am proud of our guys for stepping up."