SWANSEA — It was a tale of two halves for the Case High School Cardinals Wednesday night, as a slow start in the first half gave way to a dominant second-half showing, giving the hosts the 64-53 South Coast Conference boys' basketball win over the Fairhaven Blue Devils.
The Cardinals outscored the Blue Devils 42-28 in the second half.
“I’m proud of the effort in the second half,” Case coach Dan Wenzel said. “We knew coming in that this game was going to be a dogfight, and that’s what it was.”
The Cardinals were led on offense by a big 27-point outing from sophomore forward Jordan Rodrigues.
“He was huge,” Wenzel said. “I can’t say anything else about it. He turned the tide for us.”
The Cardinals also saw contributions from junior guard Alex Levesque and senior guard Jake Monteiro, with the pair putting up 14 and 13 points respectively.
For the Blue Devils, senior Dylan Cantara led the way with 12 points, while senior Josh Nobrega had nine off of three 3- pointers.
From the gates, Fairhaven looked the much stronger team, quickly finding themselves up 7-0, capped by a 3-pointer from sophomore Connor Rose. A 3-pointer down the opposite end from Monteiro put the Cardinals on the board. The Bluee Devils held a 12-5 lead after the first eight.
The second quarter continued much like the first, as Fairhaven extended its lead to 17-7 shortly in, but a comeback was brewing for the home team. Rodrigues scored his team's first eight points of the quarter, putting the Cardinals within six of the Blue Devils before a 3- pointer from Levesque started an eight-point scoring streak that gave Case their first lead of the game, 22-21. However, the lead wouldn’t hold for long, as Ian Conte and Logan Berube scored a pair each for Fairhaven, who carried a 25-22 lead into the half.
Straight from the locker room, the Cardinals looked like a completely different team on the court in the third quarter. Rodrigues sank three of the first four baskets for either side in the half, putting Case up 28-27, a lead they’d never relinquish.
From there, more shots began sinking for the Cardinals, and the Blue Devils' defense, which seemed to have everyone but Rodrigues figured out in the first half, was outmatched. Another 3 from Monteiro increased the Case lead to four, and quickly five off the back of Levesque layup. The trio did most of the offensive damage for the hosts, and another 3 from Monteiro saw them head into the final quarter up 42-33.
The fourth quarter was all Cardinals, especially Rodrigues, who scored nine of his points in the final eight minutes. Despite a few 3- pointers from Nobrega and Cantara, as well as another from Reece Antunes, Case looked strong all around and maintained a double-digit lead.
“Whether we win or lose, we want to do it together, and I think they played as a really good unit in the second half,” Wenzel said of his team. “We moved the ball quicker, we got open shots and they started going down because they decided they were going to do this together.”
Both teams return to South Coast League action Friday night, as Case hosts Wareham in a big bout while Fairhaven plays host to Bourne.