Bruins survive Red Devils’ rally

SPRING VALLEY — The Hall Red Devils didn’t exactly look like a team ready to face its arch-rival for much of the night Tuesday in Red Devil Gymnasium. Then they rose to the occasion.

The Red Devils outscored the Bruins 15-4 to close within two points and had a shot for the tie with 20 seconds left, and missed. A final half-court fling by Brett Fanning hit the rim, but was waved off anyway with a late starting clock as the Bruins held on for a 60-58 win.

Hall coach Mike Filippini said it’s becoming too common of a trend lately for the Red Devils.

“Great comeback, but it stinks to come up short like that against St. Bede, a big rivalry game,” he said. “I told them this was going to be like a regional game. They had to play it like a regional. When you’re in a regional, you’ve got to find a way to win.

“Seems like we get ourselves in a hole first half every game and try to play back as best we can,” Hall senior Jake Ries said. “We ultimately wanna a win. We came back and put us in position to win, we’ve just got to finish out. Tonight we didn’t.”

St. Bede coach Mike Kilmartin said it should have never been that close at the end, noting the Bruins’ poor free-throw shooting (10-19). They missed six of 10 attempts in the final minute.

“We’ve lost six games and I know at least three of them, and I thought that was going to be the fourth one, because of free throws,” he said. “It’s awful. I mean it’s awful. It’s depressing because if you make a few free throws then you don’t put yourself in that situation.”

Junior reserve Sam Lucas, who sparked the Bruins with a game-high 14 points off the bench, proved to be a life-saver. He made all four attempts in the fourth quarter, including two in the final minute.

“Thank goodness he was in there and got fouled a couple times. Coach had one right guy in there,” Kilmartin said.

Hall scored the first basket of the night, but spent the rest of the night looking up to the Bruins on the scoreboard, falling behind 17-11 after one quarter, 31-23 at the half and 45-35 after three quarters. The Bruins tacked on the first three points of the fourth quarter with a drive by Brad Groleau and a free throw by Damin Smith to go up as much as 13 points (48-35).