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12 WEEKLYNEWS.NET - 978-532-5880 MARCH 23, 2017
Fama, St. Mary’s fall in state basketball final
By Anne Marie Tobin
The St. Mary’s High boys
basketball team’s quest for a
second straight Division 4 state
championship came to an end
Saturday at Springfield College’s
Blake Arena with a 62-42 loss to
Maynard, which won its first state
title in program history.
The game was a rematch of last
year’s final, won by St. Mary’s,
which defeated the Tigers 61-
52. That game was a back-andforth
affair. Tied at 45-45 in
the waning seconds of the third
quarter, Spartans’ senior Joey
Fama, a Lynnfield resident,
canned a 3-pointer to give St.
Mary’s the lead for good.
Playing on James Naismith
Court in the heart of the birthplace
of basketball, both teams
brought a full house of vocal fans.
In the end, however, the Tigers’
tenacious defense was simply too
much to handle.
St. Mary’s matched them early,
leading 7-6 midway through
the opening quarter, but an 8-0
Maynard run put the Spartans in
a 14-7 hole going into the second
quarter.
The Tigers kept their foot on
the gas in the second quarter,
stretching the lead to 28-14 at the
half and 46-25 going into the final
eight minutes.
Just three days before the championship
game, the Spartans had
been in a similar predicament,
but overcame a 21-point first half
deficit to beat Cathedral, 74-68 in
the semifinals. Against Maynard,
St. Mary’s offense finally started
to click in the final quarter and
outscored the Tigers 17-16, but it
was too little too late. Jonathan
Mercado led the Spartans with 13
points, while Jalen Echevarria of
Peabody had 11 and Lynnfield’s
Stephen Fama had six.
Fama, who recently finished
his freshman season on the New
England College men’s basketball
team, played a key role
last year in the Spartans’ 65-64
win over Cathedral in the state
semifinals.
This year, it was Fama’s
younger brother, Stephen, a
junior, and Peabody resident
Echevarria, a sophomore, who
came up big in the Spartans’ improbable
comeback.
For Fama, while the dream of
another state title went by the
boards, every day, win or lose or
draw, is one to be treasured.
Five years ago this May, Fama
lay unconscious in the pediatric
medical intensive care unit at
Children’s Hospital in Boston
PHOTO | KATIE MORRISON
Stephen Fama, 23 in the dark jersey, goes up for a shot during Saturday’s
Division 4 state boys basketball final.
suffering from encephalomyelitis,
an acute swelling on the brain.
On vacation in New Hampshire
with friends over the Memorial
Day weekend, Fama had spiked
a fever of 103 degrees. His parents
brought him home, then
took him to Beverly Hospital on
Memorial Day where he suffered
two seizures.
He was rushed by ambulance to
Children’s.
Following the diagnosis, Fama
began to show signs of improvement.
It was not until June 17,
however, when he finally got
back on his feet, standing with
assistance.
The next day, he was able to sit
up, unassisted, and shoot hoops
during a physical therapy session
in celebration of his father Leo’s
48th birthday.
Altogether, Fama spent 19
days in the pediatric ICU, six
days on the neurological floor,
and eight more days at Spaulding
Rehabilitation Hospital.
Fast forward to March 15 at
Woburn High, and now, Fama
was fighting for his basketball
life.
Cathedral manhandled the
Spartans for much of the first
half. The Panthers were red hot
from the floor, making 13-of 20
field goals in the first 11 minutes,
while the Spartans made just
3-of-24.
The game ultimately was won
- and nearly lost - on free throws.
St. Mary’s made 22 of 31 free
throws, while Cathedral went
to the free throw line just three
times, making two. The Spartans
missed several chances to ice the
game with under two minutes left,
missing five of ten free throws
(six attempts were double bonus).
With a one point lead at 69-68
and 1.3 seconds left, Echevarria
was fouled. He made both, then
Johnny Mercado stole the inbounds
pass and heaved the ball
down court at the buzzer in celebration.
The ball, fittingly, went
in.
Echevarria hit five 3-pointers
and scored a game-high 31
points, including 10 in each of
the final two quarters, while
Fama (14 points, 13 rebounds,
six assists), was all over the court,
coming up with key rebounds,
key steals and he also knocked
down three timely threes. The
duo was unstoppable in the third
quarter when the Spartans turned
a 36-22 halftime deficit into a
48-47 advantage, while Mercado
up a huge fourth quarter, with 11
of his 13 points.
Make no mistake, this game
was not lost by Cathedral, which
made 27 of 57 attempts, including
8-of-13 in the final quarter.
Cathedral hit its first seven
shots in the second quarter to take
a 33-12 lead with five minutes
left in the first half.
St. Mary’s appeared to be dead
in the water.
Enter Fama and Echevarria,
who sparked a 10-3 run over the
final 4:56 of the half.
Fama started the run by making
two free throws. Freshman guard
Joshua Perez stole the ball and
dished to Fama, who drained a
three to make it 33-17. Echevarria
then stole the ball and fed Fama,
who dished back to Echeverria on
the give-and-go to cut the deficit
to 14 (33-19) with 3:01 left.
As promising as the surge in
offense was, the defense was also
picking up the pace, holding the
Panthers to one field goal over the
final five minutes of the half.
With a minute left, Fama deflected
a rebound to Echevarria,
who canned a three. Cathedral’s
Emmanuel Green closed out the
half with a free throw to bump the
Panthers’ lead to 36-22.
“We had a lot of turnovers in
the first half, I think at least nine,
so we said we had to take care of
the ball and play each possession
one by one, to cut the lead,” said
Fama. “They were hitting all
their shots in the first half, and our
defensive rotation wasn’t good in
that half, so we switched it up a
little. Then, we started hitting our
shots and everything seemed to
go our way.”
That’s putting it mildly.
Echevarria drained a trey to
start the second half, then Fama
followed with two more and
suddenly Cathedral’s lead was
in single digits at 38-31. Fama
turned down an open three, and
dished off to Jonathan Mola.
Mola drained it, then a Mercado
hoop made it a four-point game,
40-36. Fama turned down an
open three and dished to Mola on
the baseline, who laid it in and got
fouled. He made the free throw
to pull the Spartans to within one,
40-39 with under a minute left.
Fama then swiped the inbounds
pass and found Echevarria, who
drained a three to close out the
quarter with St. Mary’s on top,
48-47.
Mercado hit three straight baskets
(two of them threes) to start
the final quarter and Echevarria
connected on both ends of a
one-and-one to spark a 10-2 St.
Mary’s run, giving the Spartans
their largest lead, 58-49 with five
minutes to play.
Cathedral refused to go away
and went on a 17-9 run to pull to
within two at 68-66 with 17 seconds
left.
After being intentionally
fouled, Fama scored what turned
out to be the game winning point
when he made one of two free
throws.
“Looking back on it, if
someone had told me I would be
here today, and would have been
a part of a state championship last
year, I would have said they must
be joking,” said Fama following
the win. “I mean, I had to learn
to walk again and it was tough, it
was a long process that I had to
learn to do almost everything all
over again.”
Fama said the lowest point
in the game, being down by 21,
ended up being the turning point.
“Coach (Dave Brown) called
a timeout and said he believed in
us and there was no other team he
would rather be coaching. He said
we could win this game, that we
just needed to pick it up. “Then at
halftime, there wasn’t one person
who thought we would go out like
that and we knew we had to patient
and take it one possession at
a time, I mean, there is no such
thing as a 21-point shot.”
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