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March 4, 2013 · 1:01 am

Brewster Academy defeats St. Thomas More School 77-75 in overtime to win NEPSAC Class AAA title

Brewster Academy – NEPSAC Class AAA 2012-13 champs

(Beverly) This one stretched the legal limits for excitement. Ask anyone watching at packed Endicott College on Sunday afternoon.

Brewster Academy rallied in overtime and defeated St. Thomas More School, 77-75, to win the NEPSAC Class AAA championship.

#1 seed St. Thomas dominated the first half leading, 36-28, after twenty minutes. It only took #3 seed Brewster 3 ½ minutes of second half action to catch the Chancellors, 37-37, on a Chris McCullough jam.

During the rest of the second half, there were eight lead changes and plenty for the fans from both teams to get revved up about. In fact, four of the lead changes were in the last 1 ½ minutes of regulation!

Martez Harrison shoots a second free throw with 2.6 seconds left in regulation

Brewster’s Martez Harrison drew a foul with 2.6 seconds left in regulation and the Bobcats down, 68-67. He made the first and missed the second forcing a five minute overtime.

In OT, STM pushed ahead by three on three occasions (71-68, 73-70, and 75-72 with 1:15 left). But Brewster rallied back each time.

After Chris McCullough drained two free throws, the Bobcats were down by one, 75-74. STM’s next two possessions were turnovers and cost them the championship. In the first one, the Chancellors held the ball for a while and then couldn’t even get a shot getting whistled for a shot-clock violation.

Ron Patterson answered with the shot that won him the MVP trophy afterwards. He drove in from the right and hit a jump shot in the lane to give BA a one-point lead (76-75) with fourteen seconds left.

Plenty of time for TMS to respond but miscue #2 (travel by Amadi Udenyi) messed up that chance.

John Edwards made one-of-two free throws for BA with 3.2 seconds remaining.

Chris Walters fires the last STM shot in overtime

Chris Walters heave at the buzzer was wide right and BA had the championship.

Gabe Levin (20 points) led all scorers. If you’re looking for a quick reason why St. Thomas More lost, Gabe’s foul trouble comes to mind. Gabe picked up his 4th foul with 11 ½ minutes left in regulation and lost minutes there. Then he fouled out at the very end of regulation setting up Martez Harrison’s two free throws. To say that STM could have used 6-7 Gabe in OT is an understatement for sure.

Martez Harrison (13 points) tallied all his points after halftime. He went to the basket twice in the last thirty-five seconds of regulation and came away with a layup on the first and the foul shot that tied the score in regulation in the second.

Jared Terrell (18 points)

Jared Terrell (18 points) was BA’s top scorer followed by Elijah Macon and Martez Harrison with 13 points each.

Guards Duane Notice (19 points) and Marquis Moore (18 points) had only three three’s between them. They got their points on drives in traffic and foul shots.

Brewster had six dunks during the game and plenty of highlight dunks before the game.

The Chancellors missed nine free throws and the Bobcats eight.

St. Thomas was down, 8-6, before putting a 14-1 segment together and getting up, 20-9, with 9:42 left. Duane Notice and Marquis Moore had long ones during this run.

The Chancellor margin increased to, 29-18, with Dylan Haines and Marquis sinking consecutive 3’s.

The Bobcats came all the way back early in the second half and excitement enveloped the attendees the rest of the way.

MVP Ron Patterson (11 points) defended by Dylan Haines

The partisans on both sides were active from beginning to end. Good job by the Endicott staff to keep things from getting out of hand.

Brewster Academy (30-5) is located in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. I saw the Bobcats lose to Noah Vonleh and his New Hampton Prep team at BA in December.

St. Thomas More School is in Oakdale, Connecticut. It’s north of New London.

Brewster Boxscore

St. Thomas More Boxscore

(All of the pictures above and below enlarge considerably if you click on them.)

Martez Harrison

Marquis Moore goes in where shots are blocked

MVP Ron Patterson afterwards

Duane Notice (19 points) gets in for two

water containers exit

Chris McCullough pushes Gabe Levin (20 points)

Marquis Moore (18 points)

St. Thomas More coach Jere Quinn

New Hampton School downs Brewster Academy 66-58 in boys basketball

Travis Jorgenson (3) led New Hampton School with sixteen points

Noah Vonleh (14 points) defends Chris McCullough (18 points)

(Wolfeboro NH) New Hampton School (6-1) jumped all over Brewster Academy (5-3) in the first half and that carried the visitors to a, 66-58, win on Wednesday night at Brewster Academy.

Part of the first-half breakaway was an 18-2 run by the Huskies that turned a Bobcat lead (4-2) into a Bobcat deficit (20-6) after eight minutes played.

Travis Jorgenson (16 points) had two three’s and two assists in that important NHS surge.

A Brewster timeout and some loud-volume instruction/correction from Coach Jason Smith steadied things for a while. But before the half ended New Hampton ran nine straight and were up, 35-14, with three minutes left in the half.

Lincoln Davis (15 points) gets to the basket

Lincoln Davis (15 points) was key in that run with a layup, a converted rebound and two free throws.

NHS led 37-19 at halftime.

I suspect that the halftime chatter in the BA locker room was mostly about playing better defense. And that’s what we saw……..and it worked as the Bobcats started 10-2 in the first 6 ½ minutes to close to ten – 39-29. All five baskets were layups.

Later, the home team lowered the Bobcats’ lead to 54-45 (with 6 ½ minutes left) on two free throws by Kyle Washington (5 points) and a runner in the lane by Martez Harrison (10 points).

But back came point guard Travis Jorgenson with an end-to-end layup, followed by a back-breaking Noah Vonleh three. The quick five-spot pushed the Huskies’ margin into the comfort zone (59-45) with 5 ½ minutes to go.

BA closed strongly (10-2) riding a couple of three’s by Ron Patterson (10 points) but there just wasn’t enough time or stops to get all the way back.

Chris McCullough (18 points) paced Brewster. Among those points was a crowd-pleasing jam late in the first half.

In the same half, Lincoln Davis had the highlight-film jam with a spectacular putback of a missed shot. Lincoln is listed at 6-2 but believe me he plays a lot taller!

Martez Harrison and Travis Jorgenson

The key player for New Hampton School? No question to me that it was Travis Jorgenson. The 6-foot playmaker was able to handle the ball under relentless man-to-man pressure with few turnovers. He also broke down the tight defense numerous times for scores or for layups for teammates.

This was my first look at Noah Vonleh (14 points). Noah (6-9) is committed to Indiana. I was impressed. He didn’t force his offense and he could handle the ball if Travis needed an outlet. His passing was sound enough that Coach Pete Hutchins had Noah inbounding the ball against pressure.

Noah did get into a one-on-one moment with 6-9 Chris McCullough on one possession from above the key. It didn’t end well for Noah as Chris picked his pocket and led a fast break.

Noah did have the game’s biggest shot in my opinion when he drained his only three to put NHS ahead, 59-45, with 5 ½ minutes left.

Tory Miller (12 points) scored eight of them in the second half. He tipped in teammate Mike LeBlanc’s missed free throw late in the game.

Good crowd on hand to see these New Hampshire rivals.

Last time I was at Brewster the place was packed as the Bobcats faced, and defeated, Tilton. I’m still trying to get over seeing Nerlens Noel as a 6-11 point guard in that game. I don’t think we’ll be seeing much of that happening at Kentucky!

Brewster gets another chance with New Hampton at New Hampton on January 16th (5PM). It might be worth a look.

Brewster has several players committed to D1 colleges: Ron Patterson and Chris McCullough (Syracuse), John Edwards (UNH), Kyle Washington (North Carolina State), and Elijah Macon (West Virginia).

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