RallyNorth.net

Mighty Central answers call

Saturday, January, 03 By Hector Longo
Staff writer

LAWRENCE – Greater Lawrence Christmas Tournament championship No. 11 for Central Catholic was one for the “What if?” crowd.

You know, they’ve been asking all week:

“What if Billy Marsden has an off-night?”

“What if you double-team and get physical with Carson Desrosiers?”

“What if you try to make the other guys beat you?”

“What if you get Central in a close game, will the Raiders buckle mentally?”

The defending state champion Raiders answered any and all remaining doubters with a gate-to-wire tourney title win over previously-perfect Andover, 59-51, before an overflow crowd of about 2,500 at Lawrence High School’s new fieldhouse.

In a win that felt bigger than the eight-point margin dictated, the Raiders held a comfortable cushion nearly all 32 minutes, fending off every Warrior flurry.

“It’s a goal, our first goal, and I think it says a lot,” said Raider forward Tim Wheeler. “I think we showed that we’re a team tonight, and winning this tournament two straight is pretty special.”

On a night where the reigning Eagle-Tribune MVP Marsden was a tad off, shooting just 3 of 13 from the field, the Raiders never trailed in moving to 5-0 on the young season.

The Raiders set the tone early, going to Tournament MVP Carson Desrosiers for back-to-back hoops on the block.

“He hurt us early,” said Andover High coach David Fazio. “We made some adjustments and slowed him down for a while.”

Desrosiers, with a game-high 17 points to go with six rebounds and eight blocks, was as aggressive offensively as we’ve seen from him.

Still, when the Warriors adjusted, Central got key contributions from Jimmy Zenevitch (8 points), Benny Fernandez  (8 points) and a handful of others to protect the lead.

Central led 14-8 after one and 23-17 at halftime.

A 6-0 Raider flurry out of the break – one free throw from Desrosiers, a Marsden three and Tim Wheeler’s money 17-footer – pushed the advantage to double figures where it hovered until deep into the fourth.

Andover’s final thrust, a Sean Ehlbeck jumper followed by D.J. Fazio’s long three sliced the margin to five at 51-46 with 1:05 to play, but that was as close as it would get.

Fernandez settled things with a pair of free throws then Marsden (14 points) iced it with six straight from the stripe.

Fazio stated implicitly before the final that his club was coming into the title game for anything but a moral victory.

The Warrior coach left a bit puzzled.

“Did we really play well?” he queried. “I mean, I think offensively, we can be a lot better. I guess I’m happy with the way we played defense. The bottom line is they won the game, and that’s really all that matters.

“Now, we’ll go back to work, figure out what we need to work on and go right at them again on Tuesday (at Central).”

Joe Bramanti led a balanced Warrior attack with a dozen points, and long-range specialist Sean Ehlbeck added 10. Connor Arnold chipped in nine as did point guard D.J. Fazio.

Andover kept itself in the game much of the night by cashing in on the foul line, hitting 19 of 25.