RI HS Season Wrap-Up

New England Recruiting Report | Thursday, March 24th, 2016

We continue our look back at the season that was in New England’s six state associations with a recap of the year in the Ocean State.

Things ended in very familiar fashion, with Bishop Hendricken taking another state championship with a 62-57 win over LaSalle Academy in the finals of the state open.

Trailing by as many as nine points early in the second half, Hendricken responded with a 17-0 run to give them control of game heading into the fourth quarter.

Junior guard Justin Mazzulla earned tournament MVP honors while both he and senior forward Trevor Lawton finished with 14 points. Kyle Henseler added 10. LaSalle, which came into the field as the top overall seed, was led by a game high 23 points from Mike McCourt while Lawrence Sabir had 14.

A week later Mazzulla was also named the Gatorade Player of the Year in the state of Rhode Island after averaging 15.8 points, 10.6 rebounds, 3.0 assists, 2.0 steals and 1.1 blocks per game.

The state open championship was Hendricken’s second in the last three years.

WPRI Channel 12 had highlights:

Two weeks earlier, it was a much different story as Hendrick fell in the finals of the Division I state championship game 82-71. Mazzulla delivered 24 while Preston Santos added 16, but David Duke and Rodney Theodore out-dueled them with a combined 56 points in the backcourt to culminate an impressive run for Classical that included a semi-final win over LaSalle.

This was Classical's second state championship in boys basketball.

WPRI Channel 12 had highlights of the state championship game while Rhode Island Affiliated captured some of Duke's top moments from the season.

In Division II, four players scored in double figures to lead Narragansett over Westerly 65-54. Austin McKanna and Jason Palmer both had 15 while Jack Clancey and Thomaz Whitford had 14 each. Westerly was led by Marc Perry and Jacee Hamelin who finished with 20 and 18.

The Division III final was arguably the most dramatic finish of any championship game in New England and appropriately appeared on SportsCenter. Burrillville thought they had the title won and was already in mid-celebration when officials called the play back and awarded Chariho the ball at mid-court with one second left. That second proved to be the difference as a perfectly executed sidelines-out-of-bounds play gave them the championship. Four players scored in double figures for both teams. Chariho was led by 14 from Dom Ciringione, 13 from Tom Longolucco and Nate Morin and 10 from Gabe Felicetti. Burrillville got 16 from Zach Lefebvrew, 14 from Antwan Dearden, 12 from Jarred Cabral and 11 from Dominic Esposito.

WPRI Channel 12 again had all the highlights.