Milford Mirror

Lions win pair to make states (boys hoop)

Tuesday, 31 January 2012 15:21

The Foran Lions defeated West Haven, 51-35 on Friday, and are now just one win away from qualifying for the state tournament for the second year in a row.

Austin Woods led the Lions with 12 points, while Kevin Green scored 11 and James Richetelli contributed 10 in the winning effort.

Sophomore Gary Dudley led the Blue Devils with nine points, while Kadialy Toure added eight and John Johnson threw in seven points in the second half.

West Haven (4-9) started the game on a 6-4 run, thanks to two layups from Darius Coleman and a putback from Jovon Lomena.

Foran (7-6) responded with an 8-0 run on four points from Green, a Woods’ layup and a short jumper from Casey McCone.

West Haven answered with a 6-2 run to finish the quarter, trailing 14-12 to Foran.

“I thought the first half we were very sluggish, we played with no urgency,” Foran coach Tim Swaller said.

“When you do that you make things very difficult on yourself. We did not rebound the basketball. I thought we had eight in the first half alone. Second half, we woke up and I thought guys responded.”

The Lions started the second quarter with a lob from Richetelli to Woods in the paint for a layup.

West Haven responded with an 8-0 run on five points from Toure and a three from Dudley to lead, 20-16.

“We said, ‘Guys, you have to just play’, Swaller said. “We weren’t being aggressive. We weren’t doing the things we were supposed to do. We had to buckle down. We had to fight with some fire, and I thought we did that.”

Foran responded with a 13-2 run to finish the half, led by six points from Richetelli.

Green added three and Woods a thunderous dunk to give Foran a lead it would never surrender.

Foran started the second half on another 8-0 run, with layups from Richetelli, Green and McCone and a tip-in from Shawn Cariglio.

West Haven broke the run with 3-of-4 made foul shots before a fortuitous trip to the line for Green and a post-up from Woods gave Foran a 41-25 lead after three periods.

“Shawn Cariglio had eight rebounds in the third quarter,” Swaller said. “He, along with the rest of them, set the tone early [in the second half] and we were able to get the W.”

The Westies started the fourth on a 5-2 run before Foran took a timeout.

West Haven took off on another short 4-2 run with Woods nailing a short jumper to make it 45-34.

Foran responded with a 6-1 run on a Cariglio layup, a mid-range jumper from Richetelli, and short jumper from McCone.

With under a minute left, the Lions put in their reserves: Matt Gomes, Robert Notholt, Sean Deegan, Will Hull and Taylor Biagoni to ice the victory.

“We’ve got a lot of tough ones ahead,” Swaller said. “We have three next week and Hand is a very good team. We played them close here. We just got to go back, put a game plan together and head to Hand [of Madison] and hopefully get one.”

Richetelli knocked down four 3-pointers and finished with 22 points to lead Foran to a 58-55 victory over the Tigers on Monday.

Green scored 19 points, including an 8-for-8 performance from the foul line, as Hand fell to 9-5.

Foran will visit Jonathan Law Friday at 7 p.m.

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