Saturday turns into celebration of North Quincy high boys and girls basketball

QUINCY – Saturday night turned into a celebration of North Quincy High School basketball.

The undefeated girls rolled to an 80-57 win over Masconomet while the boys pulled away late to defeat Northampton, 85-62, in a pair of Division 2 Round of 32 games.

"We’re coming off an abbreviated season last year, the tournament wasn’t even on the radar,” said North Quincy boys coach Kevin Barrett. “For both of those things to be back in play in an atmosphere like this and to have the girls having the success that they’re having, it’s just great for our school community and just the community of Quincy in general.”

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Sophomore Orlagh Gormley stole the show in the girls game. She set a new high school city record (boys and girls, North and Quincy High) by going off for 56 points. Gormley said it was the biggest crowd she’s ever played in front of.

“There’s been a solid buzz going around about this group of kids after those first six games and it has continued to snowball,” said North Quincy girls coach Matt Ramponi. “It’s such a credit to them.”

Daithi Quinn, a sophomore star for the boys, put on his own show. Getting his first taste of the tournament, he helped the Raiders open the game on an 11-0 run by scoring 7 points (freshman Kobe Nguyen had the other 4). He threw down a thunderous slam dunk following a steal right in front of the student section.

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The Raiders, whose lead was as little as 53-47 in the third quarter, pulled away in large part to the play of seniors Ethan Gao (15 points) and Qunonuw Scott (11 points). Both point totals were career highs.

The Raiders will both host their Division 2 Round of 16 games (date, time TBD). The girls will play No. 9 Pentucket while the boys will play No. 9 Walpole.

Gormley’s got game

It didn’t take long for Gormley to take over in the girls game. She scored North Quincy’s first 16 points. The sophomore captain poured in 22 points in the first quarter, 17 in the second, 9 in the third and 8 in the fourth quarter.

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She broke the city record, which was previously held by North Quincy’s Brian Ross (54 in 1998), less than 90 seconds into the fourth quarter with a fast-

break layup. Quincy’s Doug Scott, and current Quincy College men’s basketball, scored 53 points in 2009 and was in attendance for Gormley’s brilliance.

“I’m not surprised by anything she does,” said Ramponi. “People don’t get it, it’s her change of speed that makes it very difficult to cover. She’s not doing anything fancy, fancy, but she’s got the ball attached to her like a yo-yo and she just works at it. She put the time into it all year, her whole life. This is what she loves.”

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Gormley wasn’t one to bask in the glory of her individual performance, instead she immediately deflected the credit elsewhere when asked about the game.

“We did it as a team, it was a total team effort,” said Gormley.

If she had a game ball to give, Gormley said Ava Bryan and Bridget Capone were deserving of mention. Capone chipped in 4 points, but she was strong on the defensive side of the ball. Ava Bryan had 6 points and was strong on the glass.

Sophomore Caroline O’Donnell (6 points, 9 rebounds) provided a jolt off the bench.

“She can do that, we just have to give her the ball and she can go to work,” said Gormley of O’Donnell.

“She’s a great, great kid,” said Ramponi, of O’Donnell. “She works her butt off and she’s physical. We needed somebody to be physical and she really stepped up for us.”

Seniors step up

Following the boys win, Barrett said this team might be his deepest yet. To spread out the playing time, the Raiders employ a starting five, who play for the first and third quarter, and a closing five, that end the halves. On Saturday, it was the senior-heavy closing five that led the way. Gao and Scott had career nights in the scoring category while Nikko Martel, a senior captain, controlled the offense. Big man Dylan Clifford had 4 assists.

Quinn stays on the floor with both units. Nguyen, Zach Taylor, Nate Caldwell and senior captain Colm Geary were the starters.

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“This is probably the deepest team I’ve had in 17 years,” said Barrett. “We’ve got kids that are so deserving of minutes and the chemistry has kind of developed over the course of time. (Playing two units is) not something we really rolled with the first five or six games, but as we kind of settled in through games like 7-15, we just kind of hit our stride a little bit and everybody kind of bought into it.”

The closers excelled in both their quarters. That group turned a 2-point first-quarter lead into a 43-34 edge at the break. Caldwell hit a 3-pointer off a feed from Nguyen (8 assists) to push the lead to 66-56 after three, but the closers pushed the lead even further. With the game in hand, the end of the bench even had a few moments to shine, like when 5-7 sophomore Will Conley drained a -pointer, much to the crowd’s delight.

Gao, more known as a sharpshooter, was effective scoring at all three levels.

“ He’s one of the best kids I’ve had in 17 years in terms of knocking it down,” said Barrett of Gao. “We had all the confidence in the world. We had run some stuff to free him up and then he makes great reads out of it. When the defense closes, he’s gotten better and his game has progressed to the point where now we trust him to put it on the floor and then to make a read or a pass or make a shoot off the dribble, which he couldn’t do as a sophomore or even as a junior. It’s a testament to all the hard work that he put.”

Scott finished with 11 points and 7 rebounds. Three times he scored off a backdoor cut off a feed from Clifford in the post. He defended with effort too. Several times in the fourth quarter, Northampton tried to roll the inbound up the floor to conserve time, but every time Scott was there to force a pickup.

“Q and everybody else, particularly the seniors, are locked in,” said Barrett of Scott. “I think it was indicative of that play where he probably could have just coasted and sat back in the half court, but he was aware enough to get up and prevent the clock from not starting.”

Taylor finished with 9 points and 5 assists. Caldwell added 8.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: North Quincy basketball teams sweep doubleheader as Gormley scores 56