NEW CANAAN — St. Luke’s had already made a run late in the first half to grab an eight-point lead at the break, so coach Tony Newsom’s message was to use that momentum and fine tune it.
The Storm did just that and never looked back, defeated the Masters School of New York 71-60 at home Wednesday.
“At halftime, we talked about slowing it down, better shot selection and attacking the basket and that opened up everything,” St. Luke’s guard Jonas Harper said. “Once we started attacking the basket, we got 3-pointers from our shooters and our big guys could get into their post moves, so I feel like the halftime speech really opened it up.”
The Storm (7-3) got double digit efforts from Harper (23 points), Jackson Ryan (18), Jackson Selvala (11) and Andrew Varoli just missed with 9.
“It was great to see,” Newsom said. “These guys are great shooters, but there’s a reason for it. They work hard at their craft, so it’s great to see and they’re so unselfish. When you watch us play you see that unselfishness, they make that extra pass and force the defense to catch up to the ball.”
For most of the first half, the teams traded buckets, with Masters (7-5), led by Nick Rivera-Torres’ 24 points, leading up until there was just 3:33 left before halftime.
Luke’s then went on a 12-3 run — literally and figuratively — using its defense to get out in transition and get easy buckets.
“Our decision making had little lapses there,” Panthers coach Matt Kammrath said. “We thrive on defense leading to easy buckets so when they started to put a couple stops together, we got a little bit rattled, got out of what we like to do. So, credit to them for taking advantage and pushing it on us a little bit and get out in front before halftime.”
Masters hung around in the second half, but a Selvala 3 with eight to play made it 56-44 Storm and Scott Vollmer’s dunk put Luke’s up by 14 with just under six left.
PLAYER OF THE GAME
Harper, St. Luke’s. Sure, the senior lead the way with 23 points for the Storm, but it was his defense, ball-handling and passing that made the difference.
“He was all over the place, I thought he was terrific,” Newsom said. “He scored a lot, but there was a number of times where he made the extra pass as well. I’ve asked him to do a lot, but he comes through for this team.”
CHAMPIONSHIP PEDIGREE
The FAA has plenty of parity from game to game, but St. Luke’s and Masters have dominated the postseason. The Storm are defending back-to-back FAA champions, while the Panthers won the conference title in 2014 and 2015.
“They’re a great team,” Harper said. “Their coach is great, they play with great energy, and they work hard.”
QUOTABLE
“We always know walking into this gym, you’re not getting anything from this program,” Kammrath said. “Credit to these guys for maintaining being a good team year after year after year, it’s a game our guys get excited. It would have been nice not to have a couple injuries to see what we could’ve done full strength, but any team that has to go on the road in the FAA and play against these guys and the Hamden Halls and the GFAs, you have to have your best because every possession is a battle; so, nothing unexpected tonight as far as what we saw.”
aparelli@bcnnew.com @reportedbytheAP
ST. LUKE’S 71, MASTERS 60
MASTERS (7-5)
Isaiah Thompson 5 6-10 16; Rashid Woods 4 0-0 8; Sebastian Pachoco 0 1-2 1; Nick Rivera-Torres 10 3-4 24; Kach Ugochukwu 3 1-5 7; Diego Medina 0 2-4 2. Totals: 22 13-25 60.
ST. LUKE’S (7-3)
Andrew Varoli 3 0-0 9; Jackson Ryan 7 2-2 18; Jonas Harper 10 2-3 23; Jah’khi Washington 2 0-0 4; Jackson Selvala 5 0-0 11; Scot Volmer 3 0-0 6. Totals: 30 4-5 71.
MASTERS 23 37—60
ST. LUKE’S 31 40—71
3-pointers: M—Rivera-Torres; STL—Varoli 3, Ryan 2, Harper, Selvala.