By Michael Letendre
BURLINGTON – The Bristol Central boys basketball team won a program record 30th straight game on Tuesday, spinning pesky Lewis Mills by a 68-40 final from the Thunderdome on the campus of Lewis Mills High School in Burlington.
Central moved to 15-0 overall and along those lines, Bristol Central’s Donovan Clingan (34 points, nine rebounds, three assists, five blocks) put himself into the records books once again, becoming Bristol’s all-time leader scorer while earlier in the evening, he established Central’s new school scoring record as well.
Martin Huckaby scored 1,825 points over his four seasons at Central but the 7-foot-2 center now has 1,843 – surpassing the 1,835 Carey Edwards tallied at St. Paul.
Clingan needed 17 points for the Central record and with 6:54 left to play in the second period, his two free throws gave him the new standard at BCHS.
And his final lay-up of the first half with seven seconds left gave him the city scoring record.
“We looked inside early,” said Central coach Tim Barrette of Clingan’s offense. “We pounded the ball inside. [Mills] didn’t have much of an answer for that. Obviously, he’s bigger than most people.”
Carson Rivoira added 12 points and plenty of hustle for Central while the trio of Damion Glasper, Steve Alseph, and Victor Rosa all played their roles to perfection – adding four points apiece to the till while playing their usual outstanding brand of defense and kept the offense churning in Central’s vaunted passing schemes.
Mills (6-8) never gave in, hitting eight three-pointers to hang around in the CCC South tilt.
Jon Schibi was outstanding for Mills, canning five 3s for 15 points as the Spartans did their best to stay away from Central’s relentless shot blocker.
“You know coming in when you play a team like Bristol Central, they’re going to be prepared defensively and they obviously have the big man in the middle,” said Lewis Mills coach Ryan Raponey. “You’re not going to get many opportunities to attack the basket. Jon is a very good shooter. He’s been a very good shooter for us for most of the season. I was happy to see him have a nice night shooting the basketball out there.”
Clingan notched all the points of Central’s game-opening 9-2 run – hitting a big 3 along the way – but Schibi answered with couple threes and his second trifecta trimmed the deficit to 11-8 with 3:52 to go in the first frame.
“Give Schibi some credit. He made some fantastic” three-pointers said Barrette. “He got one going early. One of the things we talked about in the scout was not letting him make one early and he made one early. That’s a long night chasing him around. He made a couple deep ones, played really well tonight. Give Schibi a lot of credit.”
But Central concluded the stanza with an 11-3 burst as Steve Alseph made two steals and his final theft and lob led to a big three-point play by Clingan as the Rams secured a 22-11 edge through one.
“He threw some good bounce passes tonight for lay-ups,” said Barrette of Alseph. “I didn’t think he played particularly well in the first half offensively. I kind of yelled at him a little bit to kick it in gear. He wasn’t feeling great but with that being said, when he wants to go, he’s the engine that makes this team go.”
Mills opened up the second period with a three from Connor Evans to trim the deficit to eight but Central used a 6-0 run as Clingan and Glasper assisted on each other’s hoops to give the visitors a 28-14 lead with 5:39 to go before the half.
Brice Waldron and Colby Cables (nine points) hit back-to-back lay-ups to make it a 10-point game but this time, a 12-3 Central jaunt – ended by the historic hoop from Clingan – saw Central turn defense into offense as Mills trailed 40-21 at the half.
“We all know Donovan changes the ballgame out there with his presence,” said Raponey. “But, beside him, Central has some very good athletes and, unfortunately what happened to us at the end of that [second] quarter was we had some missed shots and we just kind of lost track of these other guys in transition. They do a good job of getting to the basket and finishing.”
“Unfortunately, when you’re devoting a lot of attention to one player, sometimes you get caught losing track of the others and they were able to take advantage of it during that one stretch.”
The Spartans never got it closer than 19 points over third period play and once the threes stopped falling for Mills, Central put the thing away via a 16-3 run as a Rivoira put-back, a floater by Rosa and steal and hoop from Alseph made it 58-26 with 14 seconds to play in the quarter.
The Spartans scratched and clawed for all eight minutes of the fourth period but to finish the contest, Central’s Julius Powell hit two hoops, Mills’ Jacob Hall made a putback, while Aaron Brooks, Mike Allan and Jayeson VanBeveren all dropped in points to end the evening as Central nabbed a 68-40 win on the road against an always game Lewis Mills squad.
“The important thing to me is my team shows heart all the time,” said Raponey. “They go out there and they play hard and they try to do their best on every single play no matter what the score is. Do we hope for better execution at times? That’s part of the game, that’s part of the learning experience. And when you play a team like that tonight, they take away a lot of things you typically do well.”
“So, for us, we have to get back at it tomorrow. We’ve got a very good opponent coming in in Bloomfield but we’ve got to be prepared to go out and win a game.”
Central tangles with No. 5 Windsor in Bristol on Thursday in a rematch of the CCC Tournament contest from last season.
Game time is 6:45 p.m. and the showdown is as big as it gets as Central looks to build upon the school’s 30th straight victory.
“Thirty in a row sounds great but I really want a big one on Thursday,” said Barrette of the Windsor game. “[The streak] doesn’t matter if we lose on Thursday. So, I’ll be right to work tonight, getting ready for [coach] Kenny Smith on Thursday. My guys will have a great practice [on Wednesday], lock into what we need to do and obviously, it’s going to be a completely different game on Thursday night than it was tonight.”
RIM DUST…Only three total free throws were taken in the game as Clingan hit all three of those attempts.
BRISTOL CENTRAL BOYS BASKETBALL
BRISTOL CENTRAL 68, LEWIS MILLS 40
from the Thunderdome on the campus of Lewis Mills, Burlington
Bristol Central (15-0) 22 18 18 10 – 68
Lewis Mills (6-8) 11 10 8 11 – 40
BRISTOL CENTRAL (68): Victor Rosa 2 0 4, Michael Allan 1 0 2, Damion Glasper 2 0 4, Steven Alseph 2 0 4, Mason Stokes 0 0 0, Aaron Brown 1 0 2, Harry Ross 0 0 0, Jelani Walton 0 0 0, Carson Rivoira 6 0 12, Donovan Clingan 15 3 34, Julius Powell 2 0 4, Jayeson VanBeveren 1 0 2, Zach Vanesse 0 0 0. Totals: 32 3 68.
LEWIS MILLS (40): Brice Waldron 1 0 2, Colby Cables 4 0 9, Logan Cowger 0 0 0, Ryan Mayes 0 0 0, Jon Schibi 5 0 15, Jack Stanislaw 1 0 2, Connor McAtee 1 0 3, Jacob Hall 1 0 2, Charlie Joiner 1 0 2, Connor Evans 2 0 5, Eli Pelletier 0 0 0. Totals: 16 0 40.
Three-point goals: Clingan (BC), Schibi (LM) 5, Cables (LM), McAtee (LM), Evans (LM).
Records: Bristol Central 15-0 overall; Lewis Mills 6-8
