By Michael Letendre

MERIDEN – The Bristol Eastern boys basketball team let one slip away on Friday evening as turnovers, gaffs and foul trouble allowed host Maloney to rope up a 48-43 victory over the Lancers from Howie Hewitt Court at Francis T. Maloney High School in Meriden.

The Spartans (6-7 overall) forced the Lancers (8-4) into 16 turnovers and most of those miscues were turned into points at the absolutely worst moment.

“The turnovers were senseless,” said Eastern coach Bunty Ray. “The half court defense at times was not paying attention to assignments. We kind of let [Maloney] back into the game with everything that we did  – not taking anything away from their win. But a lot of that was us.”

Maloney’s Marcus Ward notched 18 of his 20 points over second half play, Tadrique Jones nabbed 12 points while Donte Kelly and Allen Lee added seven points apiece to lead the victors.

But the Lancers (8-4) never relented, turned a late double-figure third period deficit into a one-point edge, before additional mental mistakes and critical late game errors led Eastern to doom and demise.

“They’re great kids, they’re going to work but they didn’t work hard upstairs tonight,” said Ray of his squad. “That’s the only time this year I can say that. They just didn’t work upstairs. They didn’t do the little things.”

Late in the game, a critical lane violation against the Lancers allowed Maloney two big free throws makes while two critical offensive rebounds went the Spartans’ way.

Eastern’s Brayden Dauphinais flashed in a game-high 23 points on 8-of-14 shooting from the field – scoring over half the squad’s points.

He connected on 4-of-6 shots from 3-point territory, nabbed seven rebounds, rejected two shots while snaring three steals over a tremendous complete game effort.

But Dauphinais picked up his third foul with 4:03 remaining in the third tilt and quickly, a one-possession game became a 10-point edge for Maloney (35-25) with 45 seconds showing on the clock in the stanza.

“He looked good tonight,” said Ray of Dauphinais. “He got into foul trouble and I think that was the biggest part of the game. He gets into foul trouble. He’s playing really well and I have to take him out and that’s when the run happened.”

“He was the run-stopper tonight because no one else was doing anything offensively and that’s when the game slipped away.”

Zaveyn Tate added 10 points, five rebounds and two blocks, Lukas Sward battled illness to score five points and nab five rebounds, Jordan Chisholm canned a 3 while Nate Fries scooped in seven rebounds for Eastern.

The Lancers shot just 34.9-percent from the field and were run off shots they usually prefer to take – and make. 

“Offensively, we didn’t do the things that we needed to do tonight,” said Ray. “We didn’t put the ball where it needed to go. Maloney was a little physical and athletic, they pushed us off the ball a little but we still should be able to handle that.”

“We play enough teams where that happens. We just didn’t have it.”

Eastern started the contest with a 10-2 run which included threes by Dauphinais and Sward before Maloney had a response.

The Spartans used a 9-0 burst to capture a 11-10 edge before Dauphinais scored all the points for Eastern in second period play.

The junior standout went the the hole for two and later, he flipped in consecutive three-pointers as his last trifecta propelled the Kingstreeters to an 18-15 edge at halftime.

Off another Dauphinais lay-in, Maloney used a 7-0 jaunt to recapture the lead as back-to-back uncontested 3s by Ward gave the home team a 24-20 lead with 4:45 to go in the third.

Eventually, the Spartans stretched the edge to ten but the Lancers had one last run left in them.

An 11-0 burst, including a 3 by Dauphinais and a big Tate lay-up, made it a 36-35 game in Eastern’s favor with 5:40 to play in the fourth.

But those mistakes started to sail in, Ward scored the final five points of an 8-0 push, and with 1:58 to go, Maloney was in front – leading 43-36.

Dauphinais followed with an and-1, trimming the deficit to 43-39, before Eastern went to its full court press.

A steal and foul led to two additional charity tosses by Dauphinais and with 54.3 seconds remaining, the deficit was chopped all the way down to 43-41.

Eastern was forced to foul from there and over two one-and-one chances, Maloney grabbed multiple offensive rebounds to get back to the line for additional FTs.

A lane violation also gave Ward another couple chances at the hoop and off a 5-of-8 showing from the stripe to end the game, the Spartans made it a two-possession contest late as Maloney held off Eastern by a 48-43 final.

“It’s not about our opponent, it’s more about us,” said Ray. “You know, there was a little letdown. You get into the tournament, you expect you’re going to take off but our last two opponents weren’t as athletic and tough as Maloney. This stretch coming up, I think what we’re going to see is a lot of tough teams which is what we need to see if we want to be tournament ready.”

“We’ve got to go back to the drawing board a little bit and kind of evaluate what we’re doing, how we’re doing it and just try to get better from there.”