By Michael Letendre

BRISTOL – It’s Championship week for the boys basketball team over at Bristol Central. 

And the locals, now at 26-0, expect to be in the CIAC Division II title tilt this weekend by the completion of play on Tuesday night.

Central draws a tough assignment in the semifinal round as the top ranked Rams battle No. 4 Wilton from the Floyd Little Athletic Center in New Haven on Tuesday.

Game time is 7 p.m. and you can be sure that Central will be locked and loaded for that epic confrontation.

“Listen, I’ve been talking about it. Every coach that’s talked to me talked about everyone wants to knock off number one,” said Central coach Tim Barrette. “[They want to] end the streak, all this stuff. But my guys are one game at a time.”

And that payoff of taking the one game at a time method has led to an undefeated ledger.

However, the same could be said of the other top three squads in the Division II tournament.

In the semifinals of Division II, No. 2 Northwest Catholic squares off against No. 3 Conard from Enfield high school on Tuesday.

It’s a rematch of the semifinal round of the Central Connecticut Conference tournament and expect a similar result though the Chieftains are tough to beat behind the play of super sophomore Riley Fox.

In Division I, top ranked Naugatuck – who was also undefeated during regular season play – fell to Wilbur Cross by a 58-50 final in the second round while No. 1 Kolbe Cathedral is still alive in Division III, squaring off against No. 8 Berlin on Tuesday.

Kolbe came into the playoffs with two losses on its regular season ledger while the other top seeds in Division III are still in play.

Division IV sees top-ranked Cromwell still in the running for a title but must deal with No. 4 Granby in the semifinals on Tuesday.

But on the flip side of the bracket, it’s No. 6 Bloomfield taking on No. 10 Morgan in New Britain.

And in the second round of Division V, Terryville lost to No. 16 Portland, 57-52, as the top seed was knocked out.

Each team wants to pickoff that top-ranked squad but is there an equal to Bristol Central in its Division II bracket?

Barrette and crew weren’t looking too far ahead as Waterford was the game of the night on Friday which led to Tuesday’s battle against Wilton.

“We have a three-game winning streak we had to go on” starting with Waterford said Barrette. “You can’t win three without winning one. We talked about it in our last huddle in my classroom. When we came down, we were ready to play.”

And those Lancers were legit and had weapons all over the court, inside and out.

But once Central’s Steve Alseph (nine points, two threes) started to make shots from long range – coupled with Central’s staunch defense – that close game became a bit of a blowout rather quickly.

“[Waterford] gave us a good shot, we knew that, but we asserted ourselves so much that Waterford put so much effort to stay close in the first half and we had shot the ball so poorly, once we started making a couple 3s, that lead really ballooned quickly,” said Barrette.

And the Charles C. Marsh Gymnasium came unglued when Carson Rivoira rejected a Waterford field goal attempt with 4:52 remaining in the third period.

The hole in the wall made by Rivoira’s loud rejection will probably cost the city thousands of dollars to repair.

It was well worth it because the Charles C. Marsh Gymnasium was unhinged after that huge blocked shot.

The Time is at hand

Over the last 24 months, Bristol and the rest of the world has been somewhat limited due to the lingering pandemic.

COVID may have wiped out state title chances for the Rams in 2020 and 2021 but this senior crew is ready to capture Central’s first championship since 1990.

And you can bet the city of Bristol is waiting for that monumental moment with Donovan Clingan, Damion Glasper, Victor Rosa, and crew leading the charge.

“Coming out of COVID, we needed something positive,” said Barrette. “Donovan has put this whole community and school on his back. I can’t be prouder of being the coach of these great men.”

The bright lights don’t phase this basketball team in the least and that’s been proved via the 26-0 record and 41 straight victories – Connecticut’s current longest winning streak.

Barrette and his staff have taken the program all over the state – even to Massachusetts for a game – and nothing ever seems to derail that program and its quest for a state championship, built on five seniors strong.

“One word I’ll use is composure,” said Barrette of his squad. “My five guys have composure. It’s hard to rattle them. Pressure doesn’t bother us at the end of games and [Clingan] is the ultimate press-breaker because you then have to play him one-on-one inside.”

“And that’s impossible.”