By Michael Letendre
The Bristol Eastern boys basketball team couldn’t get on track against Simsbury in the championship game of the Bristol Central Holiday Classic on Friday evening.
In a rare off night for the Lancers, the Trojans attacked right off the bat, hitting hoops from inside and out, as Simsbury rolled up a 50-27 win to take the title in a rematch from last year.
It was the first setback of the season for the Lancers (4-1). The Trojans improved to 2-3 overall.
Eastern shot a season-low 21-percent from the field and simply couldn’t get enough defensive stops over first half play to keep pace at the event.
“It was a combination of they took us out and we took ourselves out,” said Eastern coach Bunty Ray. “We missed some shots early, kept missing them, and tonight was the first time that I saw us kind of get frustrated to the point where we just didn’t function [and] execute on the other end. The other night [against Central], it was a similar physical battle. The difference was we were able to make some shots and get some stops and stay in the game.”
“Simsbury shot a very good percentage in the first half.”
The Trojans were 13-of-24 from the field over first half play (54.2-percent) and ended up hitting 36-percent from 3-point territory for the game.
Nick Cordani led all players with 21 points – draining five threes and netting 16 first-half points to keep the Lancers at bay.
And over that first 16 minutes, every time Simsbury made a stop, they scored several times on the flip side.
“Credit Simsbury, They played good,” said Ray. “They were able to make some shots. They defended really hard. We have to bring it every night.”
Jordan Chisholm got untracked a bit for the Lancers, hitting four three-pointers on his way to 12 points.
He added a couple rebounds but no other played tallied double figures for the Lancers.
“We were trying to look for anything,” said Ray of Chisholm’s offense. “We couldn’t get anything inside, we couldn’t get anything to the basket. He’s one of our best scorers. For him to get out and shoot some shots, it was good.”
Brayden Dauphinais added six points and three rebounds while Lukas Sward (four points, six rebounds), Brady Bell (four points), Zaveyn Tate (seven rebounds) and Isaiah Lawrence-Bynum (four rebounds) made gains for the Kingstreeters.
Sward hit an up-and-under lay-up early in the first period to trim the deficit to one but a 13-2 Simsbury run – completed by a lay-up from Ryan Donohue (10 points) – made it a 16-4 game with 43 seconds left to go in the period.
Eastern trailed 19-6 through one quarter but five straight points by Cordani led to a 24-6 deficit early in the second as Eastern called for timeout.
Tate found Bell for a hoop late in the first half while Chisholm canned his first 3 but at the break, Simsbury roped up a sizable 33-14 cushion.
But Eastern’s defense made several adjustments, allowing just 17 points the rest of the way on 26-percent shooting from the field.
However, Eastern still couldn’t get tis offense churning which kept the Trojans firmly ahead on the scoreboard.
“We held them to fifty points,” said Ray. “It felt it was a 30-40 point loss. We held them to fifty points. It was just offensively where we just could not make a shot.”
Dauphinais hit two free throws and Chisholm flipped in two 3s in the third but through three completed frames, Simsbury still held a sizable edge at 40-22.
Chisholm canned his fourth three with 6:54 to go, trimming the deficit to 40-25.
But the Trojans ran some clock, went on a 9-2 run, and off one final charity toss from Donohue, Simsbury was in charge at 49-22.
In the end, the Trojans rolled up a 23-point win to take the title but the Lancers, going 4-1 to finish the 2023 portion of the campaign, all on the road, will go back to the drawing board and get ready for Lewis Mills to open the New Year.
“It was an uncharacteristic night based on what I’ve seen over the preseason and then tonight,” said Ray. “I talked to them in the locker room and I kind of said, ‘I don’t subscribe to, well, it’s just that kind of night. We made it that kind of night.’ We have to go back to work. I can’t sit here and make excuses as to why things [happened]. There were a lot of shots that went in and out.”
“You’ve got to be able to do some other things at that point.”
FINALS OF BRISTOL CENTRAL HOLIDAY CLASSIC
Bristol Central Holiday Classic – Boys Final
SIMSBURY 50, BRISTOL EASTERN 27
from the Charles C. Marsh Gymnasium, Bristol
Simsbury (2-3) 19 14 7 10 – 50
Bristol Eastern (4-1) 6 8 8 5 – 27
SIMSBURY (50): Andrew Kerwin 0 1 1, Ryan Donohue 3 3 10, Will Gills 1 0 3, Nick Cordani 8 0 21, Jacob Cohen 1 0 3, Bryce Van Meter 6 0 12. Totals: 19 4 50.
BRISTOL EASTERN (27): Brayden Dauphinais 2 2 6, Jordan Chisholm 4 0 12, Zaveyn Tate 0 1 1, Lukas Sward 2 0 4, Brady Bell 2 0 4, Ben D’Amato 0 0 0, Isaiah Lawrence-Bynum 0 0 0, Naseem Walker 0 0 0, Dante DePass 0 0 0, Benjamin Kozikowski 0 0 0, Owen Myers 0 0 0. Totals: 10 3 27.
Three-point Goals: Ryan Donahue (S), Will Gills (S), Nick Cordani (S) 5, Jacob Cohen (S), Jordan Chisholm (BE) 4.
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