St. Thomas Aquinas boys basketball beats top-seed Conant in Division III state title game

KEENE - The next time the St. Thomas Aquinas High School boys basketball team walks into its home gymnasium back in Dover, there will be new year when they look at one specific banner.

"I've been looking at 1992 up there since my freshman year," St. Thomas Aquinas senior forward Carson Couperthwait said in reference to the boys basketball state championship banner. "I started playing basketball in like seventh grade, so (that banner) didn't really mean that much to me then. But every Monday, we go in (the gymnasium) and we looked up there; at practice we looked up there (and kept seeing 1992)."

Prior to the start of this season Couperthwait predicted that banner would have '2024' on it come the end of February. That dream became a reality Saturday night.

The second-seeded Saints capped off their incredible season with a 38-34 win over top-seeded Conant in the Division III state championship game at Keene State College. It was the third championship in program history and the first since the Saints went back-to-back in 1991 and 1992.

St. Thomas Aquinas freshman Cole McClure scored a game-high 20 points, and senior captain Will Mollica scored eight points and pulled down 10 rebounds.

"It feels so good, these boys deserve it," St. Thomas second-year head coach Dave Morissette said. "If there's a group of boys who deserve to be on the wall, it's them. I'm just so happy they were able to finish it off ... they deserve it."

Conant came within four points a few times down the stretch, but the game never got to one possession in the final quarter.

St. Thomas led 38-29 before Conant's Lane Leclair made a 3-pointer with 8 seconds left. Conant added a layup right before the final buzzer sounded.

Smiling, speechless and story-filled Saints

Mollica was speechless for a second as he was thinking about how he felt about winning a state championship in his final game with the Saints.

"Would I be kidding if I said I didn't feel awesome," Mollica said. "I feel great, and I know all my guys feel great. I'm so proud of this group. I couldn't be happier."

St. Thomas junior captain Anthony Settineri shared a conversation he and Mollica had years ago.

"I've been thinking about this my freshman year," Settineri said, alluding to a tournament loss to Newfound. "I told Will, I was like, 'we're going to win a state championship at some point, me and you.' We did it with these boys over here. We got some new players, and we just did our thing."

The state championship win puts a fitting, and well-deserved cap on the year which saw the Saints end on a 15-game win streak and an overall record of 19-1. The one loss was to Conant, 39-35 back on Dec. 21. The Saints didn't lose another game.

"This is literally four years in the making for me," Couperthwait said. "There was one thing that I wanted, and it was a plaque."

St. Thomas adjusts to Conant's pace

It's not that the Saints play at the fastest pace in the state, but for some context, the Saints scored 57 points in their semifinal win over Mascoma. Conversely, in Conant's semifinal win, there was a total of 65 points in its game with Kearsage.

There were only 29 points scored in the first half of Saturday's game, and just 10 in the second quarter. The pace certainly favored Conant, but the Saints adjusted.

"We play upbeat, and (Conant) wanted to slow the game down," Mollica said. "We knew that all week. We knew we could be the better team. We're a good offensive team but defense is where it starts. Defense wins championships, and that's why we're champions."

Coupethwait said he had to give credit where it's due, Conant is a great defensive team, but the Saints learned from the regular-season hiccup.

"They were going to make us work for at least a minute each possession," Couperthwait said. "The biggest thing we remembered from the last game was they went on a 6-0 run just off turnovers. If we got impatient (tonight), that's what was going to happen. Staying patient, staying poised, trusting each other - that's what was going to get us the win, and that's what we did."

Saints hold slim lead at break

The Saints led 11-8 after the first quarter, and 15-14 at halftime.

STA shot 7-for-16 from the field in the first half, while Conant was 5-for-15. A major difference in the half was that Conant was a perfect 4-of-4 at the free throw line, while STA didn't have an attempt.

Still, STA held a lead, and obviously had plans of making it larger in the second half.

"The halftime message was simple," Morissette said. "I said 'fellas, if we can't make shots at a high rate like we normally do, we just have to keep grinding it out, and make them miss shots.' And that's what we did."

Mollica said the Saints had Conant right where they 'wanted them' at halftime.

"We had to win the third quarter, and win the fourth quarter, and then we were going to be raising a banner," Mollica said.

Identity shift

As Couperthwait alluded to earlier, Conant is known for its defense, as even with Saturday's loss, it didn't allow any team to score 40 points all season.

But, it was the Saints who one-upped Conant defensively, and for much of the second half, Conant didn't have a made field goal.

Conant scored just one point in the third quarter, and that came with 1:10 left to play on a Jared Nagle free throw.

"We knew what we had to do defensively," Settineri said. "We kind of wanted to play their type of defense. We wanted to go hard at them. We didn't want them to get any easy baskets. We wanted to contest their shooters and not let them get any second chances."

Saints held lead for final three quarters

Conant never led after the Saints took the lead in the first quarter.

"The defense was great," McClure said. "We pride ourselves on defense and rebounding ... only 34 points given up, that's pretty good."

Conant was 0-for-8 from the field in the third quarter, and didn't make its first field goal of the second half until Ben Sawyer's 3-pointer with 3:08 left.

Settineri was hounding Conant defensively, coming up with a team-high three steals, while Mollica and Couperthwait each had two blocks.

"We knew we had to be even more dialed in today, because (Conant) will catch you lacking anytime with those face cuts," Settineri said. "They'll get layups and always hit their free throws. We just had to make sure we kept them contained."

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: St. Thomas Aquinas boys basketball ends 32-year state title drought