On Friday night, the Warriors closed out the regular season with an intense, and somewhat bizarre, 84-65 victory. A game that would be finished in overtime, was ruled in the first by mainly Concord-Carlisle. Wayland’s Adam Lewin, who is the second leading scorer in the Dual-County League (DCL) was shut down by the quick guards from CC. He only scored twice in the entire first half. The exterior play and quickness of CC had them up 38-28 at halftime.
Wayland responded quickly in the third quarter. Capping off a 17-7 run, when Zack Miles hit back-to-back three point shots to tie up the Patriots at 45. “Oh Zack was everywhere tonight, he came up huge on the boards and hit all the big shots,” said assistant Coach Bobby Andrews. Wayland was struggling to take the lead for most of the fourth quarter but would never fall behind by no more than four or six points.
With a minute to go, Wayland pulled ahead of the Patriots by two, 57-55. CC was forced to foul with less than thirty seconds and they fouled freshman Jaleel Bell twice. He hit all of his free throws except one that was put back in for a lay up. With fifteen seconds to go Wayland was up by seven points, and being Senior Night, the remaining seniors were put back in.
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Although the game seemed over, Wayland was called for a foul and Concord hit the first of the two shots. Both referees were suddenly called to the scorer’s table. The Wayland foul was on a player whose number had not been registered before the game. This player may have been wearing the wrong jersey, or may have not told the scorer’s table about the change, but that made him an illegal player.
Therefore, along with the two foul shots, Concord-Carlisle would get two more technical foul shots and the ball back. CC hit the remaining three foul shots making it a three-point game. With just over six seconds left the Patriots inbounded the ball. As the buzzer sounded the ball went in, and CC had tied it up, this game was going to overtime tied 62-62.
The Wayland crowd was shocked, but Head Coach Doherty and the rest of the Wayland squad didn’t lose focus and stayed composed. He brought them into the huddle and Wayland came out of it fired up. They took an early five point lead. With just under two minutes left in the overtime a loose ball foul was called on a CC player. He didn’t like that call at all, enough to get himself ejected from the game. Because an ejection is two technical fouls, Wayland got four free-throws for the ejection and two free-throws for the foul.
Wayland made all six and would cruise onto victory from there. The Warriors won by a scored of 84-65. They scored 22 points in a four minute overtime, likely the most ever scored in an overtime here at Wayland high school. The Warriors finished first in the DCL small and are the second seed in the Division 3 North section. Their first game will be on Friday at home, against either Arlington Catholic or North Reading