SPORTS

St. Mary’s wins league title

Middle school club wins OT thriller after year away

By ALEX SPONSELLER
Posted 3/30/22

The St. Mary’s Middle School basketball team beat the odds this winter season by winning the Division II Catholic Athletic League Championship.

The team was led by its eighth graders Ryan …

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SPORTS

St. Mary’s wins league title

Middle school club wins OT thriller after year away

Posted

The St. Mary’s Middle School basketball team beat the odds this winter season by winning the Division II Catholic Athletic League Championship.

The team was led by its eighth graders Ryan Chase, Marcello Perretta, Aidan Papalauskas and Nathan Conca. Seventh graders Sergio Perretta, Kryshten Ivy-Jones and Angel Santiago-Rico stepped up big, as well as sixth graders William Ellis, Shea Hughes, Jonathan Pagliarini and Jaiden Berardis.

St. Mary’s was looking forward to competing for a state championship back in 2020, qualifying for the title game with just one loss throughout the winter. However, the COVID-19 pandemic struck and ended the team’s season prematurely.

“As a coach, to make that call was the most difficult call I had to make in my life at that point, to tell the kids we will not be playing for the championship game that they have worked six months for. The boys cried at school, over the weekend knowing the opportunity to call themselves a state (champion) was just yanked from them,” said coach Paul Berardis.

From there, the following season would be canceled outright due to the pandemic, leading the team to the 2021-22 campaign. The team was relatively inexperienced with four sixth graders and three other kids never having played the sport. To make matters worse, the team’s opening week would be postponed due to a COVID outbreak.

Despite all the factors at hand, the team would gel fast and finish the regular season with a 9-1 record, including a big 53-36 win over St. Brendan’s early in the year, which would be the turning point for the club moving forward.

“We huddled at halftime for our break and always said, ‘1,2,3, team,’ but (we) changed it up and went to, ‘1,2,3, team, 4,5,6, family,’ ... the kids bought into it, came back the second half and beat the larger undefeated team because they played together.  Every single player developed more into a young man and a better player. Shea, Jaiden and Sergio with their defense and Jaiden’s ability to score, Jonathan’s 3-point shooting, Ryan’s ability to move, Marcello, Angel and Aiden our big men underneath and Nate being the heart and soul of the team. We kept that mantra going the remainder of the season,” said Coach Berardis.

The team finished the regular season 9-1 and outpaced the opposition by an average of 54-23.The team took the No. 1 seed into the playoffs and got a win over St. Phillips to punch its ticket to the championship weekend. St. Mary’s was tied 14-14 at half against St. Joseph’s of West Warwick, but would roll down the stretch to pick up the 43-22 win.

The fan section also began to come together as a group and would don t-shirts that said “#Family” throughout the postseason run.

St. Mary’s would rematch St. Brendan’s in the championship game and would trail by six points with two minutes to play. The team would claw its way back and Conca would hit a big 3-pointer to help force overtime.

St. Brendan’s would lead 34-33 with just 10 seconds remaining. St. Mary’s would inbound the ball and Perretta dished a pass to Santiago-Rico who capitalized with the game-winning layup to take the victory.

“Timeout (was) called to calm the boys nerves (and I) told them they can do anything as they are a family and trust each other. We break from the huddle, 1,2,3 team, 4,5,6 family. Something was different because the 100-plus St. Mary’s fans chanted that with us that time. The boys were in awe and I looked at them and said, ‘this is our family, let’s go do it.’

The team would go on to celebrate its championship in the ensuing days and was honored by the city of Cranston on Monday evening for an awards ceremony in city hall. Three of the graduating eighth graders will be attending Cranston West next year while another will be heading to Bishop Hendricken.

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