EASTHAM – As far as the Nauset Regional High basketball team (10-6) was concerned last night, the first half was not pretty and to be frank, the Warriors got their hats handed to them by the visiting Monomoy Sharks (5-12).
Nauset’s Ethan “Big Red” Ladue was “huge, for sure,” head coach John McCarthy said in the Warriors’ victory last night in Eastham.
Sean Walsh/capecod.com sports
But coming out of the locker room after the intermission, down 20-14, the host members of the Black & Gold heeded every intermission entreaty made by head coach John “Mac” McCarthy and tore off a 19-0 run for the ages.
When the dust finally settled in the jam-packed, ear-splitting Nauset Field House, McCarthy’s boys had achieved the evening’s mission with a 52-36 comeback victory to clinch a postseason tournament berth.
“I told them we were too stagnant on offense. I told them to completely change our defense to zone and extended,” McCarthy said. “We definitely laid into them about offensive execution.”
While Monomoy senior guard Logan DeSouza was busy in the first half raining three-pointers down upon Nauset’s collective heads, notwithstanding the student-section screams rattling the rivets out of the pine seats, the Warriors were shooting a dismal 4-28 from the field.
Ahead 7-6 after the first quarter, Nauset saw that smallest of advantages dissipate into the ether and transmogrify into a 20-14 Sharks’ lead at halftime.
Logan dropped 10 points in the second quarter on the Warriors, added to by senior guard Dave Allen’s four points, and one wondered if the Warriors had it in themselves to do something about it.
Indeed, they did.
The momentum shifted immediately in the third quarter when the Warriors came out of the locker room on fire, as evidenced by freshman guard Nick Meehan’s three-point bomb firing the opening salvo.
Sophomore guard Chris Mazulis rained a three. Meehan added a pair of buckets. Junior guard Andrew Flynn went 4-5 from the line and stuck a pretty J, junior forward Sam Majewski joined the party with a bucket, and even senior forward Razz Green added one to the mix.
The Comeback Kids, the Nauset Warriors starting five, flipped the switch last night at halftime versus the Monomoy Sharks in a 52-36 turnaround win that clinched the squad a postseason berth.
Sean Walsh/capecod.com sports
The hosts outscored Monomoy 20-4 in the third quarter to take back the game, set and whole shootin’ match.
Senior power forward Ethan “Big Red” Ladue was a critical cog in the machinery that turned the lights back on in the Nauset Field House after the Sharks’ DeSouza had literally shot them out with his 10-spot in the second. He would get nothing again until the fourth.
Ladue would make sure of that. The burly, floor-conscious beast beneath the boards turned in 10 points and 13 rebounds and even dished out a silky-smooth pair of assists in transition that helped turn that slight spark of Meehan-fueled momentum into a freight train that would not be making any stops.
And Green certainly added to it, dumping in 11 points to go along with eight rebounds and four steals.
Another 18 points by Nauset in the fourth frame – even in spite of Monomoy’s sheer, unified intensity – proved just far too much to overcome for the guests.
“I definitely got after them to give more effort, more enthusiasm,” McCarthy said.
DeSouza added seven more in the fourth frame but it was not nearly enough to stop the bleeding once Nauset heeded its coach’s call. Besides a Dalton Nickerson jumper and three free throws, that was all the offense the Sharks would receive to try and pull back into it.
While the Warriors may have clinched a postseason berth, they most certainly had better check their shoelaces tonight when the 15-1 Sandwich Blue Knights roll down Brackett Road for a 7:00 pm start.
The Sharks welcome Abington tonight at 6:30 pm.
— Sean Walsh is the sports editor for www.capecod.com. His email is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @coachwalshccbm
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