St.Joe’s shows off firepower in semis win over Lee, 71-50

The defending Division 3 state champs St. Joe’s Crusaders opened up the flood gates early and often against the Lee Wildcats last night, in their 71-50 win in the Western Mass semifinals.

Both teams opened up the game by trading blows from behind the arc as Lee’s Kenny Retzel (16 points) knocked down 3 – three-pointers in the opening three minutes, to knot the game at 9-9.

After that it was all St. Joe’s and the three-headed monster of Michael Carpenter (21 points), Tank Roberson (13 points) and Lavante Wiggins (18 points, 12 rebounds) as the Crusaders went on a 20-7 run to close the first quarter.

While the Crusaders built up their halftime lead to 39-23, Lee had a third-quarter run in them, just as they had shown in their previous upset of Granby last Thursday.

Heamon Williams who went scoreless in the first half, converted a three-point play on a rebound and put back to cut the St.Joe’s lead to 46-32.

The power forward added another put back on a missed shot, and Retzel added a three-ball  from the wing, to cut the lead to 46-37 with 1:21 left in the third.

Lee’s Jake LeProvost (18 points) knocked down 3 of 5 free throws down the stretch to cut the Crusaders lead to 49-40 after three quarters.

Despite Lee’s third quarter run, the Crusaders showed off why they are the defending champs by squashing any hopes of a Lee comeback by knocking down two quick threes at the start of the fourth by Carpenter and Jon Bianchi (13 points) to put St.Joes back up by 15.

“We talk about that after every quarter that you need to build the lead – you can take the confidence of the other team by doing that, ” said St. Joe’s head coach Paul Brindle.

St. Joe’s moves on to the Western Mass. final against Smith Academy who knocked over #1 seed Renaissance last night, 57-45 and looked impressive in their Hoophall Classic win over Lenox.

Saturday’s lineup features Lee girls battling #1 seen Sabis at 10:45 at the ‘Cage’ in Amherst, followed by St.Joe’s and Smith Academy at 12:30p.m.

Posted by Tim Davis on March 7, 2013. Filed under Breaking News,High School Sports,Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry