The Dedham High boys basketball team nearly stole the show in front of a packed house against top-seeded Cardinal Spellman Thursday night in the first round of the MIAA Division 3 South tournament. Six first-half 3-pointers by Ryan Welch and a second-straight strong showing from Nick Walch had the Marauders giving a Cardinals squad that waltzed its way to a share of the Catholic Central Large title and a 19-1 record during the regular season all it could handle.
Trailing by three early in the fourth quarter, Cam Clifford came up with a steal in the defensive end, raced down the floor and went up for a lay-up, drawing contact from Cardinal Spellman guard Shaun Roach. A charge was called against Clifford – his fourth personal foul – and negated a potential trip to the free-throw line. Coming off a 6-0 run to close the third, having to make a go of things without their starting point guard disrupted the Marauders offensive rhythm as they had just three field goals for the rest of the game as the Cardinals prevailed 67-58.
“I can’t get that out of my mind right now because that was a tough call,” said Dedham coach Ed Hickey. “More so that it was his fourth foul.
“The refs didn’t cost us the game, but it was a tough call at a critical point of the game. Cam’s our leader in terms of getting us into the flow of things and we’re a different team when he’s not on the floor.”
Clifford felt the play should have gone in his benefit and proved costly to the Marauders, and that if the team could have gotten over this hurdle, great things were destined for them.
“I felt if we had won this game we were going to (TD Garden). I didn’t think there was anybody that could take us,” said Clifford.
Said Cardinal Spellman coach Mike Perry, “Getting (Clifford) in foul trouble hurt them a little bit. Not that we even opened up a lead, they didn’t get into that rhythm that they had at the beginning there.”
It was as Clifford returned to the lineup that the Cardinals started to pull away, opening the lead to 12 with a 13-2 run for a 65-53 lead with about 1:30 remaining.
Welch led the way with 24 points for Dedham while Walch added 22 in their final game for the Marauders.
Cardinal Spellman placed four in double figures with Paul Pitts leading the way with 19, causing problems for the Marauders in transition. Roach added 14, including a big 3 from the right corner with 3:35 to go while backcourt mate Mike Patti added 11, driving from the left side off a sideline inbounds pass giving the Cardinals an eight-point cushion with 2:42 left.
Kevin Crane gave Cardinal Spellman a huge lift off the bench in the first half with 10 points when forward Jesse Anderson picked up two quick fouls.
The Marauders trailed by 11 in the third, but Clifford, Walch and Welch, as they had so often done this season, rallied the team out of a hole as they keyed a 12-4 run to pull to within 51-48 entering the fourth.
There were eight lead changes and five ties in the opening half as Dedham hung around early thanks in large part to sloppy play by the Cardinals, something Perry chalked up to his team playing in its first postseason game while Dedham already had one under its belt from two nights prior.
Welch got going early in the second from beyond the arc, knocking down 3s on consecutive possessions from the left corner and top to give the Marauders their largest lead of the night at 22-18.
Clifford picked up his second foul of the night with 4:44 left in the half and was forced to sit, and Dedham’s first possession without him on the floor resulted in Mike Patti coming away with the steal and driving in for a lay-up to cap an 8-0 run for a four-point lead of their own with 4:22 to go, which they managed to maintain the rest of the way, even if it was by the slimmest of margins at times.
Welch finished his second quarter with a 3 from the top with 32 seconds left and cutting the Cardinals lead to just 35-34.
“I hit one and I just wanted to keep going,” said Welch. “I wanted the ball and just kept trying to go. They keyed on me in the second half so it got a little tougher.”
Being able to close out his career in a loud, sold-out venue is something Welch intends to take with him.
“It was awesome. It was great way to go out, but obviously I would have liked to win,” said Welch.
The Marauders finish the season at 11-11 while Cardinal Spellman is on to a meeting with No. 5 Abington in the semifinals after dispatching No. 8 Dighton-Rehoboth 59-49 in a quarterfinal Saturday.
Dedham graduates the bulk of its rotation as Welch, Walch, Ryan Duane, Scott Murphy and Dave Sheehan, who missed the game injured, all played key roles and figure to be missed next year. Welch was the only member of the current squad to appear on the 2007-08 team that went from not winning a game to reaching the tournament in each of the next two years.
(Keith Pearson is Staff Writer for the Dedham Transcript. He can be reached at (781) 433-8371 or kpearson@cnc.com.)
