Sports
Back in business: Weymouth girls, boys basketball win in long … – The Patriot Ledger
WEYMOUTH – It had been a very long time since either the Weymouth High girls or boys basketball teams had been part of the MIAA postseason. In their triumphant return, the Wildcats acted as if they had never left.
In Tuesday’s Division 1 preliminary round doubleheader, the 25th-seeded girls kicked things off with a resounding 57-33 win over No. 40 Everett, thanks to a career-high 19 points from 6-3 junior forward Callie Flynn. It was Weymouth’s first tournament appearance since 2012 and its first playoff win since 2009 — a 57-56 nail-biter over Fontbonne Academy in the old Div. 1 South bracket.
“It’s very exciting,” junior forward Megan Doyle (11 points) said of ending the two playoff droughts. “Being the first to do this for a long time shows the younger kids that they can come to Weymouth and be successful.”
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In the nightcap, the 30th-seeded boys made it a clean sweep, routing No. 35 Lexington, 81-58, as Edric Louissaint heated up after a slow start to finish with 20 points, and Gill Dolan and Will Savage (off the bench) each chipped in 17. It was the boys’ first time in the tournament since 2014, when they beat Attleboro in the Div. 1 South preliminaries before falling to Mansfield.
“It doesn’t feel real,” Louissaint said. “It feels so surreal.”
Both programs, resurgent under new coaches, had been aiming for a night like this all season. When they finally got it, it was as good as they had imagined.
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“That’s amazing,” Gill Dolan said of the girls/boys sweep. “Both basketball teams come through, both get home games, both get the W. Big things for the town.”
“We’re starting a (new) culture — boys and girls,” said Dylan Umano, who chipped in 7 points. “We haven’t been here in a while. We’re putting Weymouth on the map.”
Despite not being used to the playoffs, both Weymouth teams hit the ground running. The girls (now 12-9 on the season) led 21-3 after the first quarter while the boys (14-9) were up 20-8.
The scoreboard clock was malfunctioning in pregame warmups. As AD Robert O’Leary tinkered with it from the scorer’s table he punched in a fake placeholder score that showed the visitors ahead 147-126. Reality was a little tamer offensively, although the Weymouth girls were on pace for a 100-point night at the first timeout, up 13-2 with less than half the first quarter gone.
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The Wildcats settled for that 18-point lead after the first eight minutes as right away the hosts’ size proved an insurmountable obstacle for Everett (10-11). Doyle (7 points), Flynn (6) and Ainsley Weber (6) had all but two of Weymouth’s points in the quarter as the Wildcats kept feeding the post.
“That’s what we wanted to – work a high-low because we knew we had a height advantage,” first-year coach Doug Kirby said.
The boys, winners of seven straight, also took charge right away. Nick Neary’s three-point play broke a 6-6 tie, and Gill Dolan followed by knocking down a left-wing 3-pointer and drawing a foul. He converted for a 13-6 lead, and the Wildcats were never really challenged after that. They led by 15 late in the second quarter, by nine (38-29) at halftime and then by 22 (64-42) after the third quarter.
14: That was the number of points Flynn had by halftime in what she called her best game ever.
“Callie has got a lot of stuff working for her because she’s 6-foot-3,” Kirby said. “She’s a wonderful kid. We clearly had a size advantage tonight and that’s one of the things we wanted to do — we wanted to use it, go inside to her, go inside to Megan, kick outside to the shooters if we needed to. She’s doing a much better job of catching the ball and finishing as the season’s gone on.”
“I love her,” Doyle said of Flynn, who came out of the game for good in the first minute of the fourth quarter. “I can always count on her to get open on the post. It takes a little while for her to get into a groove, but once she does she’s unstoppable.”
0: That was the number of points Louissaint had in the first quarter. The Wildcats didn’t really need his offense, especially with Savage scoring Weymouth’s last seven points of the quarter, but everyone knew it was just a matter of time before he came around. Sure enough, he had 6 points in the second quarter and then exploded for 12 in the third.
“We definitely knew it was coming,” Umano said. “He’s been our leading scorer the whole year. He’s always shown up ready to play. Never a doubt when Edric’s on the floor.”
Louissaint also had a huge block from behind on a Lexington breakaway that brought the house down in the third quarter. The Lexington player (we won’t name names) had gotten in Louissaint’s face at the other end of the floor just moments before.
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“Yeah, we were jawing,” Louissaint said with a smile. “It might have been a little personal, the block. I’m a competitor. I like to compete. It’s fun.”
2: The number of starters Weymouth’s opponents lost over the course of the night. In the girls game, Everett senior guard Japhnie Pierre hurt her leg less than two minutes in and was on crutches soon after. The Lexington boys (13-8) lost senior guard Nelson Mendes-Stephen to a third-quarter ejection for leaving the bench during a minor dust-up under the Weymouth basket. To be fair, Mendes-Stephen appeared to be trying to play peace-maker by pulling his teammates away, but the officials tossed him.
The boys will play at No. 3 Franklin (18-1) on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in the Round of 32.
“We were just hoping to scratch and claw and get in,” said Wildcats coach Jim Dolan, who is back coaching the boys team for the first time since 2015. “Now we have 14 wins. We have Franklin now. We’re playing with house money.”
The girls will play at No. 8 North Andover (14-6) on Friday at 5:30 p.m. in their Round of 32. Weymouth hopes to have senior forward Larissa Gilberto back in the lineup after she missed this game with an illness.
“I know they’re really good. And I know their gym is big,” Kirby said of North Andover. “I know who they are. I think they know who we are. We’re going to go and we’re going to roll the balls out (on the floor) and do our best.”