What can Brown do for St. Raphael? Come up clutch in his first game back from injury

PAWTUCKET — These were the moments Khamari Brown was waiting for.

With the St. Raphael boys basketball team about to give away a double-digit lead to Burrillville and its best player fouled out, Brown stepped up to do the job he had been working for ever since he tore his meniscus in a game on Jan. 24.

In the final 10.6 seconds, Brown stopped the bleeding and then iced the game with two free throws, the finishing touches on a 54-50 win over the Broncos that sends the Saints to Saturday’s Division II semifinals at Cumberland High School.

“The postseason is all about surviving and advancing,” Brown said. “I’m going to take this win, finish celebrating it tonight and then back to the drawing board tomorrow.”

There was a time when it looked like Brown would never get the opportunity to do anything of the sort, nevermind help lead his team on what it hopes is a championship journey.

In St. Raphael’s 67-62 win over Johnston in January, Brown suffered a knee injury that was later diagnosed as a torn meniscus. He told The Journal six days later that his season was likely over, but he was holding out hope for the playoffs.

“Every time I get injured I never believe that I’m finished,” Brown said. “I try my best with exercises and rehab just to get me back to where I love and what I love to do best, which is work hard and work my body.”

While Brown wasn’t playing in games during his recovery, he was still a part of the team. He was a fixture at practice and during games took the Saints through their warmups and sat on the bench and acted more like an assistant coach than a teammate.

Brown already had his teammates’ trust and respect, but this only endeared him to them more. This is why, when on a night where he struggled to make much of anything from the floor, his teammates trusted him with the ball to finish the game from the free-throw line.

“It was all about me being an upperclassmen and letting them know you control the game,” Brown said. “I tried to tell them toward the end just give me the ball, I’ll make it happen for you guys and I’ll make it count.

“It definitely felt good. I’m still mad I didn’t make as many as I wanted to, but I’ll take the ones I made to move and advance.”

After the third quarter, it didn’t look like the Saints were going to need clutch free throws to finish. Coming out of halftime up 25-23, St. Raphael played its best basketball of the game. The Saints forced Burrillville into turnovers or held them to one-shot possessions and Jay-Den Matos’ ability to get to the rim and the team’s ability to clean up on second chances made them impossible to stop.

“It’s all about just coming together as a team and building each other up,” Matos said. “I make a bad play, they build me up; anybody makes a bad play I build them up.”

A driving layup by Matos followed by a stop and layup from Brown had St. Raphael up, 46-34, with 4:37 left to play. Out of nowhere, Burrillville came alive. The Broncos scored on their next four possessions to get the deficit down to 49-44 following Nolan Serafin’s 3-pointer with 3:16 left.

“It’s that Bronco Pride we have,” Serafin said. “We have guts, grit and everything. We just wanted to leave everything out on the floor.”

St. Raphael worked the lead back to eight, but Burrillville would not go away. The Broncos were down 52-47 with 57 seconds left after a layup by Logan Gelinas and St. Raphael gave them ample opportunity to come back, missing six straight free throws.

After Gelinas missed two, Jack DiChiaro hit a 3-pointer with 13 seconds left to make it 52-50, which is when Brown stepped in to close things out.

“It’s huge. He’s a big part of this team with what he brings — rebounding, shooting and spacing,” said Matos of Brown’s clutch shots. “It’s amazing.”

It was a tough way to end things for Serafin, the team’s lone senior who was a walking double-double all season long. The Broncos were a young team this winter, but Serafin’s leadership and talent made them one of the toughest teams to beat in D-II.

“I love those guys so much, I just wanted to win it all for them and for me,” Serafin said. “I wanted to win it all for my coach. It wasn’t our night this night, but they’ll come back — I know they will.”

St. Raphael will get at least one more game. The Saints will play the winner of Tuesday’s quarterfinal between No. 11 Middletown — which upset No. 6 Shea last week — or No. 3 Tolman.

While Brown said he’d like to get a shot a city rival Tolman, he also said he knows it doesn’t matter who the Saints play. This was a game they weren’t predicted to make, a fact St. Raphael is reminded daily by a large printout posted on the gym wall of the Division II coaches’ preseason poll that had the team ranked 10th in D-II.

“That’s why we hung it up in the lab,” Brown said. “It’s just the motivation for us to see that at the start of this we weren’t the favorites and we haven’t been the favorites for many years.”

“It’s just St. Ray’s basketball,” Matos said. “They’re both good teams. Tolman has some good players, Middletown has some great players, it’s just that. Whoever we play, it’s going to be a dogfight.”

BURRILLVILLE (50): Sean Zanella 0-6 0-0 0; Logan Gelinas 4-9 2-4 11; Jordan Furtado 0-9 0-0 0; Nolan Serafin 7-16 7-9 22; Jack DiChiaro 4-6 0-0 11; Frank Bergin 0-4 1-2 1; Alton Kelley 2-5 0-0 5; Dylan LaFleur 0-0 0-0 0; totals 17-55 10-15 50. ST. RAPHAEL (54): Khamari Brown 2-12 3-6 7; Jay-Den Matos 8-22 2-3 19; Rafael Rios 2-6 0-0 6; Zerek Johnson 5-13 3-6 13; Addison Hazziez 4-10 1-4 9; Lucas Rosa 0-0 0-2 0; Alex Ramos 0-1 0-0 0; Niyu Christian 0-2 0-0 0; totals 21-66 9-21 54.

Halftime – St. Raphael 25-23. 3-pointers – Burrillville 6-23 (DiChiaro 3-5, Serafin 1-5, Kelley 1-3, Gelinas 1-1, Furtado 0-6, Zanella 0-4, Bergin 0-3), St. Raphael 3-23 (Rios 2-6, Matos 1-10, Johnson 0-3, Brown 0-2, Christian 0-2). Rebounds – Burrillvile 37 (Serafin 20), St. Raphael 51 (Johnson 11). Assists – Burrillville 9 (Gelinas 4), St. Raphael 5 (Johnson 3). Turnovers – Burrillville 14 (Serafin 7), St. Raphael 10 (Johnson 3). Steals – Burrillville 3 (Three with 1), St. Raphael 12 (Matos 12). Blocks – Burrillville 1 (Serafin), St. Raphael 2 (Matos 2). Fouled out – Matos.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: St. Raphael beats Burrillville in RIIL Boys Basketball D-II quarterfinals