The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (MVRHS) boys varsity basketball team used dominant rebounding and accurate foul shooting to slip by the Sandwich High School Knights 66-65 in a dogfight at Sancy Pachico Gym in Oak Bluffs on Tuesday night.
Ricardo Andrade had 22 points for the Vineyarders, including 10 free throws. Nick Bond put up 18, Dylan Araujo 12, and Lucas DeBettencourt had six points. Jordan Tate and Thomas Weston had three, while Mike Powers chipped in two points to go with a ton of rebounds.
Chris Tzimorangas of Sandwich led all scorers with 23 points. In a battle for family bragging rights, Sandwich’s Dylan DeBettencourt outscored his first cousin, Vineyarder Luke DeBettencourt, by a 10-6 count, albeit in a losing cause.
Both squads went at it 100 percent, playing man to man, pushing the ball, hitting the floor for loose balls, contesting passes and for position all night in fast uptempo offenses that created turnovers on both sides, forcing each other to sprint back on defense.
“We need this one,” Knights Coach Dennis Green said before the game. He noted that his seven-win team needed three more wins in its final four games to qualify for the state tourney. His team played that way, stretching the Vineyarders to their limit in a seesaw, mostly one-possession battle.
The teams were tied at 19 after one quarter; the Knights had a three-point lead (33-30) at halftime. The Vineyarders led by two points after three periods, and it took four-for-four foul shooting by Mr. Andrade and Mr. Bond in the final 29 seconds to give the Vineyarders enough cushion, as Sandwich made a three-pointer as time expired.
The Vineyarders move to 14-4 on the season in games played, including a game forfeited to them by Community Arts and Science High School. They next play Bishop Stang in Oak Bluffs at 4:30 pm on Thursday, Feb. 16.
