By Jack Hooker
Editor-in-Chief
The boys’ basketball team defeated No. 11 Brockton High School 65-64 Wednesday night, advancing to the D1 south semifinals.
Senior captain Mark Karmiy lead the team in scoring with 28 points, followed by sophomore center Sasha Hoban, who contributed eight points.
“We knew that if we played our game we could beat them,” senior captain Geoffrey Gray said. “We knew the first four minutes were the most important in the game and that it was all going to start on defense.”
South held Brockton to 12 points in the first quarter, maintaining a 35-28 lead into half time. Senior guard Jack Groper contributed three three-pointers in addition to Karmiy’s 16 points in the first half.
“Our execution wasn’t great but our defense made up for it,” Gray said. “We also held them to a limited amount of offensive rebounds.”
South kept a 47-41 lead going into the fourth quarter, but Brockton came within two points with 2:38 left on the clock.
Karmiy hit two free throws, giving the Lions a three point lead with 50 seconds remaining.
“We just made sure we kept our composure and stayed poise down the stretch,” Gray said. “We were beating them by double digits at times in their own gym so we knew they were going to make a run and we were right.”
Knocking down an and one with less than a minute, Brockton took the lead, however, were unable to hang on. South beat Brockton 65-64, after Brockton missed a layup and a put back in the final seconds.
“Not many people gave us a chance but we believed we could win and that’s why we won,” Gray said.
The Lions next game is against No. 4 Catholic Memorial today at 2:00 p.m. at CM. The Lions lost to CM in double overtime during the regular season.
“Last time we played CM we had miscommunications on defense that left certain kids wide open,” Gray said. “We need to limit our turnovers. Breaking their press will be harder in their gym because it’s a lot smaller than ours, but the matchups are there for us so we just need to execute.”
