Melrose Basketball Runs Into Unbeaten-at-Home Watertown

Hours before the Green Bay Packers beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, the basketball team had their own matinee game at Watertown High School, and despite their efforts, Watertown stayed unbeaten on their home floor with a 65-44 victory

The home Raiders were led by Marco Coppola, Tyler Romanelli, Danny Kelly, Connor Stockdale and Alex DiPietrantonio.

The visiting version of the Raiders—Melrose—were led by Jalen Adams and their big man Andrew Scocca.

Watertown coach Steve Harrington was pleased with his teams effort.

"I thought we did a good job on defense and really used our speed and quickness to our advantage,"  Harrington said. "I thought the key going in to the game for us was to contain their big guy own there (Scocca), he's a great player. We did that for the most part, had some shots fall and played a pretty solid game overall."

After Melrose opened the game with a quick two, the Red Raiders found themselves on the wrong end of scoring deluge, as Watertown went on a 19-0 run.

Great defense and a block from Stockdale sparked easy transition buckets for the Raiders, while three balls from Cory Donahue and Avo Chekmeyan helped sparked the offense. As he usually does, Coppola was a key factor in the early start out of the gates for Watertown as he racked up five quick points at the free throw line, and ended the quarter with a buzzer beating jumper to put his Raiders ahead 28-9 at the end of one quarter.

More smothering perimeter defense from Watertown at the start of the second quarter gave Melrose a ton of trouble getting any penetration into the lane. 

Romnelli followed a steal and fast break produced by Donahue with another three pointer. Melrose tried to control the bleeding a bit with a drive in the lane from Adams and a pretty up-and-under lay up from Ryan Sherlock, making it 39-16 with 3:20 to play in the half.

Watertown continued to step on the gas, though, with a trey from Meroujan Bagdasarian making it 43-16. Scocca hit two free throws at the line for Melrose in the closing seconds of the half, but his team still trailed 43-18.

Watertown stole the opening possession of the second half and quickly got a three from Donauhe. After trading buckets again, Melrose finally seemed to wake up a bit, going on a 13-3 run midway through the third quarter, getting buckets from Adams, Scocca, and Nathaniel Trippe along the way.

As they did all day though, Watertown answered. After a Trippe three pointer made it 49-32 with 3:25 to play, Romanelli came right back down the floor and buried a three of his own, seemingly taking the wind out of the surging Melrose's sails. The teams began battling for loose balls at a frantic pace, and headed to the fourth quarter with the home Raiders leading 53-32.

Scocca opened the final frame with four straight points, but Kelly responded with a three pointer. Adams hit back to back transition layups, including a pretty and-one play with 3:19 to play, cutting the deficit to 62-41, but the hole they had dug early in the game was just too much to overcome.