'The story is not over': Wareham gets to defend its state title after overtime buzzer beater
TAUNTON — With their careers on the brink of being over, Wareham’s five starting seniors came together at midcourt at Taunton High with their team ahead by just two points late in the fourth quarter.
As they huddled in a circle with their arms interlocked, Wareham’s fans rose to their feet.
“We all said, ‘Do not let this be our last game,’” said Wareham senior guard Ajay Lopes. “We all agreed that this would not be our last game. We had to execute down the stretch and that’s what we did and that’s why we’re going to the finals.”
The top-seeded Vikings kept their season alive with a thrilling 67-65 overtime victory over No. 4 Millbury on Tuesday night in the MIAA Div. 4 Final Four to get a chance to defend their state title from a year ago.
“They believe in themselves,” said Wareham head coach Steve Faniel. “They believe they can get it done. Those seniors had one goal in mind. The job is not done. The story is not over. The story needs to end the right way.”
With 12 seconds left in overtime and the game tied at 65, Lopes drove to the basket and with a pair of Millbury defenders converging, Lopes found senior center Antoine Crosson for the game-winning layup as the buzzer sounded.
“If you know Ajay Lopes, that’s what it is. That’s what makes him great,” Faniel said. “A lot of kids when they’re your best player, they are going to force that shot up, but Ajay makes the right play. That’s finding the open guy. He got the ball to the open guy. That’s his job. That’s what he does.”
Crosson said he was ready for Lopes’ pass.
“He knows where to find people. I figured he would find me,” said Crosson, who scored four of Wareham’s eight points in overtime. “We work on that play a lot in practice. I tried to go up strong with it and scored a layup.”
Lopes added, “Thank God for Antoine. I love him. It was a good layup.”
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Millbury scored the game’s first six points, but Wareham came back to take a 16-14 lead on a 3-pointer by Lopes at the end of the first quarter.
Wareham took a 27-21 advantage into halftime and extended the lead to 37-24 with 6:16 left in the third on a putback by Crosson.
The Woolies responded with a 15-5 run to pull with 42-39 on a basket from junior Mathias Waire with 1:04 left in the quarter.
But Wareham answered with seven straight points to go back up by double digits.
Millbury rallied back from a 10-point deficit early in the fourth quarter and forced the overtime thanks to a 3-pointer from the top of the key in the final seconds by senior Kenny Donnelly.
“They’re the mountain you have to conquer and to just come up with a design that works, and really you just have to survive their pressure,” said Millbury head coach Jim Donnelly. “I think (Wareham coach Steve Faniel) does a great job, they really do play hard and it’s not easy to win back-to-back (state titles) and keep the momentum, and they’re in a gear that is going to be tough to match and we did match it and I'm proud of my kids, but they were in a gear in the overtime that (shows) they’re just one of the best teams in the state.”
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WHAT IT MEANS
The Vikings (22-3) face No. 2 Bourne (23-1) in the Div. 4 state finals at the Tsongas Center at a date and time to be determined. Wareham’s last loss came against the Canalmen 71-61 on Jan. 26. Since then, the Vikings have won 11 straight games. Bourne beat No. 6 Burke 71-60 in Tuesday's other state semifinal. ... Millbury finished the year with an overall record of 20-6.
PLAYING WITH POISE
Lopes picked up his fourth foul with 3:33 left in the fourth quarter. He played the rest of regulation and the entire overtime session. He finished with a team-high 21 points and five assists.
“A lot of guys I would take out when they got that fourth foul, but I have complete trust in Ajay,” Faniel said. “I gave him the keys to this ship a long time ago. I trust him to make the right play and I trust him to do the right thing.”
Lopes said he played smart on both ends of the court.
“I had to stay aggressive and I had to be a leader,” he said. “I could not take myself out of the game.”
MELLO DELIVERS DOWN THE STRETCH
Wareham senior Diego Mello scored 13 of his 16 points in the final 20 minutes. He scored four points in overtime with a pair of free throws and a fastbreak layup.
“Diego has always been clutch all his life,” Lopes said.
Mello said he was proud of how his team responded to adversity.
“It came down to the very end,” he said. “They threw everything they had at us, but we didn’t look away for one second and we didn’t back down for a minute. It shows we play with a lot of heart no matter what.
“It feels good, but like we’ve been saying all year, ‘The job is not finished.’ We’re going to celebrate this one and go back to work tomorrow.”
COACHES CORNER
“Going into the game, we knew if we played their style of basketball we’d be in a dogfight. Last time we played them that’s how the game was. We knew we could win that way, but we didn’t necessarily want to play that way. We wanted to play our style of basketball. They did a good job of making the tempo theirs.” — Faniel
TEAM STATS
Wareham shot 44% (23 of 52) from the field and 85% (18 of 21) from the foul line with 16 turnovers. … Millbury shot 54% (24 of 44) from the field and 62% (10 of 16) from the foul line with 21 turnovers.
NOTES
Crosson finished with 14 points and eight rebounds. ... Mello was twice fouled on 3-point attempts. He made 10 of 12 free throw attempts in the game.
Wareham 67, Millbury 65, OT
Millbury
Tyler Vaccaro 10 (1), Anthony Pillipo 4, Jimmer Donnelly 16 (2), Kenny Donnelly 23 (4), Patrick Sheehan 4, Mathias Waire 8.
Wareham
Aaron Cote 2, Ajay Lopes 21 (1), Antoine Crosson 14, Diego Mello 16, Amare Rose 6, Jayce Travers 6 (2), Jakwon Pittman 2.
Millbury;14;7;18;20;6 — 65
Wareham;16;11;20;12;8 — 67
This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: Wareham beats Millbury with overtime buzzer beater to advance
