HYANNIS — Few can argue this point: Sturgis West’s Mike Mondello can run with the best of them.
He can also shoot.
Sturgis West’s Mike Mondello scored 27 points and went 11-14 from the free-throw line to lead the Navigators to a thrilling 51-49 victory over sister school Sturgis East last night.
Sean Walsh/capecod.com sports
Scoring a game-high 27 points last night to pace his Sturgis West Navigators to a nailbiting, 51-49 victory over crosstown sister-school Sturgis East, Mondello shined best when he laced a pair of free throws in the game’s final seconds to seal it. The speedy, drive-the-lane ball-handler also went 11-14 from the free-throw line in what likely made the true difference in the game.
Interestingly, the Navigators did not have much more offense than that with the exception being four downtown treys from John Ryan, three of which Ryan drilled in the first quarter. Ryan and Mondello were the entire offense for the Navigators in that frame and when the dust settled, Sturgis East had the lead, 14-11.
East jumped out to an early lead on seven quick points from the Storm’s leading scorer Jacob Tobey who buried a three-pointer to start things off and then went to the line on a 5-5 free-throw binge. Sawyer Gibbons added five, including a trey of his own and Evan Taubert added two points.
The Storm stayed ahead of Mondello and the West squad through the end of the first half, building a 23-18 lead.
But in the third quarter, things began to change dramatically as the Navigators came roaring back to cut the deficit down to two points. Sturgis East ended the third quarter with a one-possession lead and a 36-34 score. The Navigators knew they were within a bucket or two of taking control of the game and, perhaps, the victory.
That victory came down to both teams repeatedly crashing the lane and drawing the foul: all hopes were pinned, it seemed, on the charity stripe.
The Navigators outscored the Storm, 17-13 in the fourth, its hopes answered in the form of a 6-9 combined effort on the line from Mondello and Sean Glynn whose sole point in the game came on a free throw in the fourth. Mondello scored 1 of his 27 points in the fourth quarter and he was aided, in part, by a Connor Cameron three-point bomb. The trey was Cameron’s sole bucket of the day.
The Storm’s Tobey was held to just two points in the fourth quarter and even though Hunter Woodbury helped the Storm maintain a semblance of momentum with his late three-pointer, it just wasn’t enough. Sawyer Gibbons finished with 11 points and Woodbury had eight.
— Sean Walsh is the sports editor for www.capecod.com. His email is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @coachwalshccbm
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