ATTLEBORO, Mass. - Canton found themselves in a big hole early and were unable to climb out of it, falling to top-seeded Bishop Feehan, 73-56, in the D2 South Quarterfinals.
Feehan junior Frank Oftring scored a game-high 32 points - 21 of them in the first half - and added 10 rebounds as he helped pace Feehan to a 25-9 lead after one and a 45-20 lead at halftime.
"That's a very, very good team," said Canton head coach Ryan Gordy. "They have a lot of different weapons and a lot of different guys that can hurt you. It's an excellent ball club and they're well-coached. We had no answer, absolutely no answer for Oftring. The better team won tonight."
Canton took an early 5-3 lead but Feehan rattled off ten straight points to take a 13-5 lead. Ato Botsio answered with a field goal for Canton, but the Shamrocks went on to close the quarter on a 12-2 run.
Canton made things interesting midway through the second quarter and gained some momentum with an 8-0 run that made their deficit 31-20, but Oftring broke the run and sparked one for Feehan, who went on to use great ball movement and the extra pass to end the first half on a 14-0 run.
They were sitting in that extended 1-3-1 zone for a good position of the game," said Bishop Feehan head coach Matt Freeman. We worked on it in practice in the two days between. Because it was a little spaced in the middle of the floor, we wanted to try and get the ball in Frankie's hands and he could look opposite. When they collapsed there, we were able to get the cross pass or to the corner and we knocked down a couple of those. I think what really made the difference was with the movement, we were able to get guys to leave their feet and we could turn the corner and get into the lane and dish for easy layups or get fouled going to the basket."
After just two three-pointers in the first half, Canton began to find their range in the third quarter. They hit four three-pointers and closed the quarter on a 9-0 run to trail by 16, 55-39, heading into the fourth quarter.
"We came out a little rusty shooting the ball." Gordy added. "They had tired legs from the Sandwich game and I don't really go too deep into my bench. It took them a little while to get moving."
But Feehan would slam the door shut in the final quarter, mostly in part to 11 points from Oftring, who drained a three about halfway through the final frame to extend the Shamrock's lead back to more than 20. Feehan had eight different players register in the scoring column.
"A lot of teams have been able to get the extra pass on us this year but they haven't had that extra option," Gordy said. "They have a lot of weapons. We've done a good job all year of taking away team's weapons but they just had too many weapons."
Senior Sam Larson finished with a team-high 17 points while classmate Tristin Morris added 16 points of his own. Ato Botsio chipped in with 12 points and Matt Kelley finished with eight points.
The Bulldogs finish a historic season at 14-8 and will graduate eight seniors, who have all been apart of an immense program turnaround.
"This is a major success this season," Gordy said. "We changed the program, we had a 10 game win streak, broke a lot of school records and set school records. The big picture, we could not be more proud of these guys. My seniors have really set the bar high."
Ryan Lanigan can be contacted at [email protected] and followed on Twitter at @R_Lanigan.