Just about two months ago, after an 11-point loss against rival Falmouth, Cape Elizabeth senior center Joe Geoghegan made one of those “just wait” proclamations.
He didn’t promise a victory in the rematch, but he came close. Geoghegan was frustrated and already looking forward to Feb. 10, when the Yachtsmen would be in town for the last game of the regular season. It would also be Cape’s Senior Night.
When the game finally arrived, there was only one thing on the 6-foot-7 captain’s mind: “Tonight, it was a matter of us nine (seniors) not wanting to lose on our home court, especially to Falmouth.”
That strong will, combined with a suffocating defense and good outside shooting led Cape (16-2) to a 53-46 win over Falmouth (15-3).
As a result, the Capers locked up the No. 2 seed for the Western Class B tournament. They play (insert) on (insert) at (insert).
“Joe was ready to play,” said Cape coach Jim Ray. “We were trying to get him to face up and just shoot that little jump shot. He’s got to keep doing that. Now how are they going to play him?
“So that was good. It’s good for that to happen in a game like that, going into the tournament.”
The jumpers that Ray referred to helped the Capers build a first-quarter lead, which they would never relinquish. Geoghegan made it 7-3 with a turnaround from the block, got it to 9-6 with a leaner and then hit another jumper to make it 11-8.
Meanwhile, sophomore forward Shaine Burks, who Ray has called Cape’s “best on-the-ball defender,” held Falmouth’s go-to player, swingman Bryant Barr, to zero points in the first. And Barr turned the ball over twice.
“We came out in a defensive mindset and we knew we had to stop Barr, but he’s pretty good at passing it off too,” said Geoghegan. “We were able to get our hands on some balls for some steals, and then we were able to convert off our turnovers, so it worked out nicely.”
The Capers extended the lead to 20-8 at the start of the second quarter when senior guard Ben Poirier knocked down a three-pointer. They maintained the 12-point margin thanks to the shooting of another senior, forward Liam O’Shea, who led all scorers in the game with 20 points.
O’Shea hit a pair of free throws with 3:30 to go, then knocked down a jumper before going to the line again when a Falmouth assistant coach was given a technical foul for arguing a scoring change made by the referee.
Barr’s struggles continued, even with Burks out of the because of foul trouble. Fellow sophomore Tommy Ray, Jim’s son, stepped in.
“They were well-organized, had a gameplan,” said Halligan. “We didn’t stick to ours, which we have to work on. The kids got a little bit excited.
“We were sort of ad-libbing a lot, which was a credit to their defensive pressure. They were mixing up their defense, playing the box-and-one or the diamond-and-one, the man-to-man. We were switching our offensive sets and they were switching their defensive sets, so it was a like a chess match.”
The Yachtsmen pulled to within seven at two different points in the third quarter, but Cape responded by building the lead back up to 11.
“The crowd was helpful,” said O’Shea. “The crowd got behind us and we took the energy from that.”
Barr finally got hot late in the fourth, scoring nine of his 13 points, but by that point the Capers’ lead was too big to overcome – even if they did miss seven free throws down the stretch.
“We’ve played two big games the past two games and won against two of the top teams in Class B, so that’s very helpful going into tournament,” said O’Shea. “We’ll probably face them at some point, at least one of them, and hopefully we can win four more games and win that last one of the season.”
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