WINTHROP – Sixth-seeded Winthrop needed to do three things to advance to the next round of the Western Class C boys’ basketball tournament – rebound, defend the paint and score from the perimeter.
The Ramblers did all three things to near perfection in the second half Wednesday night to defeat No. 11 Lisbon, 55-43. Winthrop moves on to face No. 3 Boothbay next Monday at the Augusta Civic Center.
While it was a total team effort by the Ramblers, three players proved to be the difference in those three key facets of the game. Nate Damm (15 points on five 3-pointers) provided much of the perimeter offense, Chip Burnham (seven points, 14 rebounds) pounded the boards, particularly the offensive glass, and Jason Allen (nine points, seven steals) proved to be the defensive spark the Ramblers needed.
Mike Wilkins led Lisbon with 18 points and eight rebounds, while Levi Ervin added 14 points and eight rebounds before fouling out late in the game.
A 16-2 third quarter run put Winthrop (11-8) on top for good after Lisbon (7-12) inflated a 22-20 halftime margin to 28-22, its largest lead of the game. Sam LeClerc began the momentum shift with a 3-pointer, followed by back-to-back treys from Damm and Mike Gingras (12 points). A conventional three-point play from Allen and a spinning inside bucket by LeClerc made it 36-30 Ramblers.
“We had a little trouble getting going, just figuring out what defense they were running in the first half,” Allen said. “Once we started finding the open man, reversing the ball around, we started finding our shooters and our shooters started making shots.”
Making shots from the foul line wasn’t so easy for the Ramblers (8-for-25), but even that turned into a positive late in the third when, led by Burnham, they rebounded three straight misses from the charity stripe and ended up adding two more points to their lead.
“Chip Burnham at 6-2 did a great job going up against some guys that are bigger than him,” said Winthrop coach Dennis Dacus.
“We gave up a lot of big rebounds in the third quarter and the start of the fourth,” said Lisbon coach Doug Sautter. “The two biggest keys we talked about before the game were rebounding and taking care of the ball, and those two things we didn’t do.”
The Ramblers packed their zone defense into the paint and made the Greyhounds pay for sloppy passes into and out of the post, forcing 22 turnovers compared to the 12 forced by Lisbon.
“We wanted to deny the interior pass to the foul-line. We knew our guards needed to sag hard because they have good interior passing,” Allen said.
“We’re not a real good perimeter team and they know we like to pound it inside and so they took that away,” said Sautter, whose team was missing one of its main perimeter weapons, Evan Manocal. “We just couldn’t hit any outside shots and we had too many turnovers on the perimeter.”
Lisbon made one final run when a putback by Ervin and a 3-pointer by Wilkins made it 45-42 late in the fourth. But Ervin picked up his fifth foul with 3:15 remaining, and Damm, as he had done all night, responded with a trey from the right corner with 1:49 left to make it 48-42 and effectively put the Greyhounds away.
“I knew they’d play some zone and I knew that whenever they pressed we could get (Damm) some shots,” Dacus said. “I said to him before the game that it was going to be his coming-out party, and it was.”
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