St. John’s Prep overwhelms St. Mary’s 67-43 in boys basketball opener

(Danvers) In the season opener for both teams, St. John’s ran away from St. Mary’s in the second half winning, 67-43, on Monday night in non-league play.

The Eagles (1-0) blew open a relatively close first half (32-24) with twenty-two points in the third quarter while limiting the Spartans to only four points.  When that dust cleared The Prep was in total charge, ahead by twenty-six (54-28).

St. Mary’s (0-1) opted to play a zone defense against the taller Eagles for much of the game but the long-range shooting of St. John’s wrecked that strategy.

Both Drex Costello (13 points) and Max Burt (13 points) connected three times from downtown as part of ten successful 3’s by the Eagles.

The Spartans best quarter was the second when seven points from Tommy DeVeau (14 points) and a couple of three’s had them outscoring St. John’s, 17-16.  But beyond that a very good Eagles man-to-man defense kept the Spartans away from too many high-percentage shots.

Matt Manning had ten points for St. Mary’s.

Spartan starter John Teehan left the game in the fourth quarter with an apparent ankle injury.

St. Mary’s didn’t do itself any favors with their foul shooting – 19-for-33 with a number of the misses coming on the front end of one-and-one’s.

Division Four St. Mary’s has a state finals rematch with Cathedral on Friday night (7PM) at Cathedral.

Division One St. John’s will be hosting Lynn Classical on Saturday at 5PM.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(The pictures above and below enlarge considerably if you click on them.)