LOWELL – More literally than figuratively, the mountain was just too much to climb for Central Catholic.
Bishop Feehan’s Brody Bumila – all 6-foot-9 of him – came as advertised. Big, physical and talented, the Texas-baseball-bound senior scored 36 points, pulled down 20 rebounds and blocked five shots as the Shamrocks completed their Cinderella run with a 66-63 win over top-seeded Central in the Division 1 state final her at the Tsongas Center.
Bumila scored 51 in the state semis in a 89-73 thrashing of Andover High last week.
“We thought if we could keep him under 40, we’d have a chance to win,” said Central coach Mark Dunham, whose club closes out the year at 22-3. “I thought we did a really good job on him. A tough matchup, but in these games I don’t feel like you can gimmick it. You have to live by what you do. Elkin (Pena) did a phenomenal job on him.”
The sophomore Pena, spotting Bumila at least six inches and probably close to 75 pounds, battled like the all-conference player that he is.
Central led the game for a half, 33-29, with Javi Lopez leading the way with a dozen at the break. Senior point guard Jeremiah Almanzar was finding cracks in Feehan’s suffocating zone, and Bumila had 17 at the break.
But the traffic at the top of the three-point arc created by Feehan bogged the Raiders down offensively, and with Bumila lurking at the rim, Central slowed to a crawl.
Bumila opened the third with a dunk, and Feehan seized control.
At 38-38, Jake Webster gave Feehan the lead for good with a drive, and Bumila followed with a putback and a long 3-pointer, his lone non-layup of the night, to make it 45-38. He finished with 12 in the quarter, and Central would be in chase mode the rest of the way.
Lopez closed out his highlight-reel Central career with 13 points in the fourth, including five straight to make it 59-58 Feehan, but the Shamrocks would not be denied.
“Credit to Feehan. They beat the one seed, the two seed, they go on the road,” said Dunham. “An unbelievable performance, and we ran into a little bit of a buzz saw.”
Bishop Feehan 66, Central Catholic 63
Division 1 State Championship
At Tsongas Center, Lowell
BF (18-7): Egan Gill 2 0-0 4, Jake Webster 3 7-8 13, Phelan Duffy 1 0-0 2, Lucas McNally 3 0-2 8, Kaden Baltazar 1 1-2 3, Brody Bumila 16 3-3 36, Totals 26 11-15 66
CC (23-2): Elkin Pena 3 3-3 9, Nizeah Castillo 3 0-0 8, Jeremiah Almanzar 4 2-2 11, Javi Lopez 11 2-2 30, Drew O’Keefe 2 0-0 5, Totals 23 7-7 63
3-pointers: BF – McNally 2, Bumila; CC – Castillo 2, Almanzar, Lopez 6, O’Keefe