Clippers Square Off With Sabis For State Title

By: Rich Maclone
Published: 03/12/10

The best and worst part of the tournament is the finality. Two teams will enter the DCU Center in Worcester tomorrow afternoon with hopes of a Division II state championship. One will leave with the trophy, and neon smiles, the other will depart with disappointment.

No matter how far you go in the state tournament, only one team finishes with a victory.

That team will either be the team from Falmouth High School (20-5) or the Sabis Charter School of Springfield (22-2). Both have impressive resumes and have played like teams on a mission. Both have won by blowout scores in the tournament, and squeaked out one-point nail-biters. Both have go-to scorers and competent role players.

What they don’t have is any shared opponents. Weighing the merits of either the Clippers or the Bulldogs is a difficult task because they play worlds away from one another. Sabis is the western Massachusetts champion, and Falmouth the eastern Mass champs.

Falmouth’s run to the state championship game has been a grand one. After posting a 15-5 regular season, which included the outright championship of the Atlantic Coast League, FHS opened the state tournament with a 12-point win over Dennis-Yarmouth, a team it beat twice during the regular season. It then gutted out a 68-54 win over a physical Duxbury team. Next up was the top-seeded team in the south, Whitman-Hanson, whom the Clippers blew away, 87-50. In the south championship game Falmouth faced the reigning DII champs from Milton and survived a tight nailbiter, 51-50. That set up their showdown with Salem at the Garden, which they pulled out.

Sabis rolled through the regular season, going 18-2 and earned the top seed in the west. They destroyed Belchertown in their first game, 87-55, and then rolled past Drury, 56-41. In the west title game they defeated Hoosac, 70-57. That put them in the other state semifinal game, against Groton-Dunstable, which they won Tuesday night.

For Falmouth it will come down to being able to do what they’ve done all year long: play solid defense and hit shots. That task will be difficult if senior guard DK Johnson is unable to play. The senior captain injured his ankle during the first quarter of the Clippers’ 62-55 win at the TD Garden in Boston on Monday night and is having daily treatments to try to get him ready for the big game (see related story).

With Johnson in the lineup the Clippers are a tough matchup for anyone because of the things that the starting point guard brings to the table. He can play four different positions on the court, run the offense, get to the basket, and rebound. Without him it becomes tougher to win, but, as the maroon and white proved on Monday, it isn’t impossible.

Nelson Baptiste and John Lavin, both juniors, picked up the slack against Salem, with each man pouring in 25 points. Lavin was the key to the victory as the center scored 23 points in the second half and pulled down a game-high 18 rebounds. Baptiste, not known for his work on the glass, chipped in with nine rebounds and scored 16 after halftime.

If Johnson can’t go, someone else is going to have step up and do some of the scoring. Coach Paul Lundberg pointed to the Clippers’ big win over Marshfield during the regular season when the Rams decided that they weren’t going to let Baptiste kill them and doubled off of Alessio Tranchell. The senior power forward canned 12 points that night and did a great job of knocking down the jump shot off the baseline. If Tranchell can come through with another performance like that it will certainly bolster Falmouth’s chances of knocking off Sabis.

But who is Sabis? Good question.

The Charter School just moved up to Division II this year, mainly because they had become too good for Division III. The Bulldogs won two of the last three DIII state titles, including last year’s, and have built up a nice little history of success over the recent years.

On Tuesday night they gutted out an ugly win over a strong Groton-Dunstable team, winning an offensively deprived game, 45-44. Neither team scored a field goal over the final three minutes of the game and the contest went to the wire, with G-D missing a three at the buzzer that would have won it and sent them to the DCU Center.

Sabis is certainly an athletic team and they will present some matchup troubles for Falmouth. Leading the way is guard Kamali Bey, who has been named MVP of the west region in back-to-back years. Bey is just a sophomore.

The guard is an explosive player who can get to the basket and plays more like a power forward than a guard. He rebounds his position exceptionally well and will play under the hoop just as much as out on the perimeter. He is being recruited by several Division I college programs already.

But he’s not the only player whom FHS has to worry about. Coach Lundberg said that freshman guard Xavier Garcia is a confident point guard who distributes the ball well and is capable in scoring, too. Guards Andre Key and Jason Hollet are both solid shooters and 6-4 center Eddie Hall rebounds very well. Another big rebounder for Sabis is lanky junior forward John Williams. “They’re very athletic and pretty much interchangeable,” Lundberg said of tomorrow’s opposition.

So how will the Clippers attack the Bulldogs? Lundberg said with a week to prepare for the possibility of not having Johnson in the lineup that he feels like his offense will be able to run its normal sets and do the things it wants to. Freshman guard Andrew McGill will have a lot of responsibility thrown upon him, whether Johnson can play or not. McGill has fared very well in his first go-round at the state level, handling his point guard job very well. The pint-sized point guard has distributed well and has knocked down the occasional jump shot, keeping defenses honest in the process.

“We’re going to have to get good open looks and get contributions from a lot of people,” Lundberg said. “Everybody has to rebound.”

Lundberg already feels like his team has accomplished more than he could have hoped for. The coach, who admits he hasn’t had a chance to reflect on the grandness of what is happening, said his team is already a champion. “Winning at the Garden: that was the state championship right there,” he said. “We’ve had great crowd support; you couldn’t ask for more support. It’s been great for the community.”

And thousands from Falmouth will be trekking up the Mass Pike tomorrow afternoon hoping to see one more win from their Clippers. It’s a long ride, but hopefully it will be one worth every mile.

Tickets to the game are available at the DCU Center in Worcester at a cost of $8 students and $13 for adults. For those that can’t go to the game, follow the progress at Rich Maclone’s blog at www.capenews.net

Sabis rolled through the regular season, going 18-2 and earned the top seed in the west. They destroyed Belchertown in their first game, 87-55, and then rolled past Drury, 56-41. In the west title game they defeated Hoosac, 70-57. That put them in the other state semifinal game, against Groton-Dunstable, which they won Tuesday night.

For Falmouth it will come down to being able to do what they’ve done all year long: play solid defense and hit shots. That task will be difficult if senior guard DK Johnson is unable to play. The senior captain injured his ankle during the first quarter of the Clippers’ 62-55 win at the TD Garden in Boston on Monday night and is having daily treatments to try to get him ready for the big game (see related story).

With Johnson in the lineup the Clippers are a tough matchup for anyone because of the things that the starting point guard brings to the table. He can play four different positions on the court, run the offense, get to the basket, and rebound. Without him it becomes tougher to win, but, as the maroon and white proved on Monday, it isn’t impossible.

Nelson Baptiste and John Lavin, both juniors, picked up the slack against Salem, with each man pouring in 25 points. Lavin was the key to the victory as the center scored 23 points in the second half and pulled down a game-high 18 rebounds. Baptiste, not known for his work on the glass, chipped in with nine rebounds and scored 16 after halftime.

If Johnson can’t go, someone else is going to have step up and do some of the scoring. Coach Paul Lundberg pointed to the Clippers’ big win over Marshfield during the regular season when the Rams decided that they weren’t going to let Baptiste kill them and doubled off of Alessio Tranchell. The senior power forward canned 12 points that night and did a great job of knocking down the jump shot off the baseline. If Tranchell can come through with another performance like that it will certainly bolster Falmouth’s chances of knocking off Sabis.

But who is Sabis? Good question.

The Charter School just moved up to Division II this year, mainly because they had become too good for Division III. The Bulldogs won two of the last three DIII state titles, including last year’s, and have built up a nice little history of success over the recent years.

On Tuesday night they gutted out an ugly win over a strong Groton-Dunstable team, winning an offensively deprived game, 45-44. Neither team scored a field goal over the final three minutes of the game and the contest went to the wire, with G-D missing a three at the buzzer that would have won it and sent them to the DCU Center.

Sabis is certainly an athletic team and they will present some matchup troubles for Falmouth. Leading the way is guard Kamali Bey, who has been named MVP of the west region in back-to-back years. Bey is just a sophomore.

The guard is an explosive player who can get to the basket and plays more like a power forward than a guard. He rebounds his position exceptionally well and will play under the hoop just as much as out on the perimeter. He is being recruited by several Division I college programs already.

But he’s not the only player whom FHS has to worry about. Coach Lundberg said that freshman guard Xavier Garcia is a confident point guard who distributes the ball well and is capable in scoring, too. Guards Andre Key and Jason Hollet are both solid shooters and 6-4 center Eddie Hall rebounds very well. Another big rebounder for Sabis is lanky junior forward John Williams. “They’re very athletic and pretty much interchangeable,” Lundberg said of tomorrow’s opposition.

So how will the Clippers attack the Bulldogs? Lundberg said with a week to prepare for the possibility of not having Johnson in the lineup that he feels like his offense will be able to run its normal sets and do the things it wants to. Freshman guard Andrew McGill will have a lot of responsibility thrown upon him, whether Johnson can play or not. McGill has fared very well in his first go-round at the state level, handling his point guard job very well. The pint-sized point guard has distributed well and has knocked down the occasional jump shot, keeping defenses honest in the process.

“We’re going to have to get good open looks and get contributions from a lot of people,” Lundberg said. “Everybody has to rebound.”

Lundberg already feels like his team has accomplished more than he could have hoped for. The coach, who admits he hasn’t had a chance to reflect on the grandness of what is happening, said his team is already a champion. “Winning at the Garden: that was the state championship right there,” he said. “We’ve had great crowd support; you couldn’t ask for more support. It’s been great for the community.”

And thousands from Falmouth will be trekking up the Mass Pike tomorrow afternoon hoping to see one more win from their Clippers. It’s a long ride, but hopefully it will be one worth every mile.

Tickets to the game are available at the DCU Center in Worcester at a cost of $8 students and $13 for adults. For those that can’t go to the game, follow the progress at Rich Maclone’s blog.

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