NEWBURYPORT — There was no masking the disappointment.
No flowery talk about how the Newburyport boys won their seventh straight CAL Kinney title this year, or how they crushed league competition by almost 30 points a game. Barely a mention of the program’s 51 total triumphs over the last three years, or reflection on how it’s managed to pull off back-to-back seasons of 19 wins.
Maybe, just maybe, that day will eventually come … but it’s not going to be soon.
Because straight up, this just wasn’t suppose to happen.
Tuesday night, No. 3 Newburyport unexpectedly saw its season come to an end, falling to a gritty and determined No. 14 Boton Latin Academy team, 63-62, in a Division 3 Round of 16 overtime thriller. The Clippers twice had the chance to “survive and advance,” once at the end of regulation and again at the end of overtime. But the team’s “homerun” play saw Cal Atherton’s deep 3 hit off the back iron and extend the game, then trailing by a point with the final possession in overtime, the Clippers’ spectacular year came to a sudden end with a turnover.
“(Latin Academy) played great, and we just missed some shots that we normally hit,” said Newburyport coach Mark Elmendorf. “I just thanked our seniors for their career. Man, I don’t know how many games they won over the last three years, but it was a lot. So, it’s disappointing as all get up, but it was a great high school basketball game. And we just didn’t hit the shots that we normally hit.”
Hey, upsets happen.
We did just turn the calendar over to March a few days ago, right?
But for a Newburyport (19-3) team that was determined to be the best in school history, and had legitimate state championship aspirations, this one will definitely sting for a long time. Remember, the Clippers basically ended the regular season nearly beating top-ranked St. Mary’s, and many believed a rematch between the two was destined to happen in the Division 3 title game.
That, of course, won’t be the case.
But in truth, Newburyport was simply beat on Tuesday night.
Latin Academy (17-5) earned every bit of its massive upset.
Basically rolling with its starting-five for the entire game, the Dragons opened up an 18-13 lead after the first quarter thanks to RJ Jimenez, Krem Amparo and Ja Works. Defensively the Dragons made sure to close out hard on shooters Atherton and Zayd Leanna, but otherwise clogged the paint to stop Carson Gretz from driving. Unfortunately for the Clippers, their other guards weren’t able to make the visitors pay for that defensive strategy, as the night was marred by uncharacteristic missed open shots, layups and turnovers.
Surprisingly, an Atherton 35-footer at the buzzer still made the game tied 27-27 at halftime.
“I told our guys that it was going to be tough,” said Dragons coach Dan Bunker. “This was like the first real atmosphere of a big playoff game that these guys have played in, so we kind of built this up and watched a lot of video of just the crowd. We knew that (Newburyport) had a lot of shooters that we had to get out on and contest, because they can hit tough shots. But I thought we did a good job of that.”
So, okay, Newburyport played one of its worst halfs of the season, and it was still a tie game. Surely the Clippers would regroup during the halftime break and put things away early, right?
Not so fast.
Latin Academy quickly let the partisan home crowd know that it wasn’t going anywhere. An and-1 from Amparo put the Dragons up eight later in the third quarter, and they were able to hold that margain heading into the fourth, 45-37. Only a sophomore, Amparo went toe-to-toe with Gretz in the post, finishing with a monster stat line of 25 points and 17 rebounds.
“He’s been a beast all year,” said Bunker of Amparo. “He’s a sophomore, and he’s such a quick second jumper, he’s so quick off his feet. We were able to get him some good low post position today, and he played great.”
But with its back against the wall, Newburyport fought back.
The junior Leanna (20 pts) opened the fourth quarter with a personal 8-0 run, hitting a pull-up jumper followed by free throws to tie the game at 45-45. Then when Gretz (19 pts, 13 rebs) hit a 3 to put Newburyport up 52-49 with three minutes left, you could feel the court shake. But Latin Academy just wouldn’t go away, with Jimenez (14 pts) and Will Olinto (12 pts) getting buckets to tie things at 53-53 with 40 seconds left.
The Dragons appeared to have the final possession of regulation, but Sam Craig stole the inbounds pass with 2.7 seconds left and called timeout. After the break, Newburyport heaved it down the court to Craig — the football team’s top receiver this fall — who caught it on the opposite 3-point line and touched a pass back to a cutting Atherton.
The shot was on line … but just a touch too strong.
And much like what was happening all night, Newburyport just missed a handful of layups during the overtime period. A pair of free throws by Works put Latin Academy up 63-59 with 33 seconds left, but Leanna came up clutch and swished a 3 on the other end with 20 seconds on the clock. The Clippers again fouled Works, who missed both this time to keep it a one-point game. Craig grabbed the rebound and pushed it down the court with plenty of time, but the Clippers were never even able to get a shot off.
Olinto hedged hard on a dribble hand-off at the top of the key, and was able to come up with the steal that sent his Dragons moving on to the Division 3 quarterfinals.
“We’ll still be really, really good next year, and this is going to stick with them for a while,” said Elmendorf. “This isn’t what we expected, but we’ll be back.”
Boston Latin Academy 63, Newburyport 62 (OT)
Division 3 Round of 16
Latin Academy (63): Francisco Bailey 0-1-1, Ja Works 4-2-11, Krem Amparo 10-5-25, RJ Jimenez 6-0-14, Will Olinto 4-4-12. Totals 24-12-63
Newburyport (62): Sam Craig 4-1-9, Zayd Leanna 6-6-20, Cal Atherton 3-1-8, Ben Corneau 2-1-6, Carson Gretz 9-0-19, Thomas Thoreson 0-0-0. Totals 24-9-62
3-pointers: LA — Jimenez 2, Works; N — Leanna 2, Atherton, Corneau, Gretz
Latin Academy (17-5): 18 9 17 9 10 — 63
Newburyport (19-3): 13 14 10 16 9 — 62