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The regular season is now over for the Winchester High boys basketball team, and by all accounts they appear to be ready for a long run in the upcoming Division 1 state tournament. The Red & Black ended up winning 16 of 20 games, and are the 22nd seed in the power rankings, as of Feb. 10. Altogether, there are 66 teams statewide in this division.
In their final four regular season games, the Winchester boys won two. They throttled host Reading on Feb. 6, 86-56, before beating visiting Belmont four days later, 63-53. The losses came against host Lexington on Feb. 3, 69-62, while Arlington got by them at its place, 63-55 to close things out on Feb. 12.
Coach John Fleming’s crew will be on winter break from school next week, but there’s still no time off for them on the court. They will be practicing and maybe scrimmaging other postseason teams to stay sharp for the playoffs, before the state tournament pairings come out on Feb. 21.
Against Belmont, Fleming thought his team played a really solid first half, but had to hold off the Marauders in the fourth quarter to secure the win.
“Our bench did a nice job once again making some plays,” said Fleming. “Max (Phillips) continues to show growth. His decision-making ability to attack keeps on improving, while (junior) Jonathan (Cutler) gave us some good energy. Gibby (Ketterer) has practiced well over the last few weeks, and as a result we are seeing that translate to the games.”
Senior captain Dawson English led the team in scoring against Belmont with 15 points. Senior captain Carson Sarpong was next in line with 12. Phillips accounted for nine. Senior Harrison Burbine and Cutler chipped in with seven apiece.
Fleming says that the blowout win over Reading “was probably our most complete game of the season to this point,” while adding, “we set the tone early on defense, and did a great job of (distributing) the ball and making shots on offense.”
Burbine played an excellent all-around game against the Rockets with 23 points that included four threes to go along with seven rebounds. English was credited with 14 points and six rebounds. Sophomore Evan Wilson came through with 12 points, all of them on threes. Sarpong tacked on 10. Phillips netted nine. Cutler grabbled six rebounds. Junior guard Devon Ryan stole the ball three times.
The loss to host Lexington was a hard-fought game from start to finish, according to Fleming.
“It was a two-point game with two minutes to go (on the clock),” said the coach. “We needed to get one more stop or one more made shot, and the game could have been much different down the stretch. We played incredibly hard, but would have liked a few turnovers back that led to Lexington points. (On a sidenote), we had another great environment for a high school game. It had playoff intensity from the start.”
Burbine (15), Ryan (12), English (11) and Sarpong (10) were the double-digit scorers against the Minutemen.
Joe McConnell is a longtime, award-winning sports editor for numerous North Shore publications. He began covering Winchester sports for the News in November 2024 and is currently its Sports Editor. He can be reached at editor@winchesternews.org.
