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By Joshua Balling
I&M Managing Editor
About midway through the third quarter of Sunday’s Cape and Islands All-Star basketball game at Barnstable High School, Delroy Lawrence exploded toward the rim, deftly grabbed an alley-oop pass from Dennis-Yarmouth’s Justin Clarke in mid-air, and slammed the ball through the hoop with ferocity.
Lawrence’s dunk was just one highlight in an afternoon of highlights, several of them provided by the Nantucket High School senior and his fellow Whalers on the victorious Lower Cape teams: Josh Butler and Eric Lowell in the boys’ game, and Angela Paterson, Shantel Hanniford and Jess Halford in the girls’ game. The Lower Cape boys won easily, 127-89, while the girls came out on top after a tense final quarter, 90-84.
Lawrence, who finished with 19 points and six rebounds, and Paterson (20 points), were named Lower Cape MVPs. Hanniford (eight points, 12 rebounds) picked up the defensive MVP. Butler finished with eight points and six rebounds, Lowell had three points and three rebounds, and Halford, a freshman, had a strong game with eight points and three rebounds.
“I was kind of tired, but getting there and seeing everybody warming up, we’re all pretty much friends, so I was really excited to play. I forgot all about being tired,” said Lawrence, who was a force on both offense and defense, altering shots and taking the ball hard to the basket while playing about half the game, some of it with a bloody nose.
“It was a good game, and it was great to be out there with players that good from all over the Cape and Islands,” he said of players like Mashpee’s Andriquez Farmer, a member of Butler and Lawrence’s AAU squad who played for the Whalers before moving off-island two years ago. Farmer, named the Upper Cape MVP in a losing effort, has seemed to move in a different gear all year, almost always in control and almost always a step ahead of just about everyone else on the floor.
But on Sunday, playing against the best the Cape and Islands had to offer, he couldn’t break away. While Lawrence, who averaged 16 points a game for the Whalers this season, dominated inside for the Lower Cape team, C.J.
Nicholas of Barnstable took over outside, scoring 22 points, including five 3-pointers. Cape Tech’s Dom Richmond also had a strong game for the winners, scoring 16 and grabbing more than half a dozen boards.
It made for a tiring afternoon, especially for Butler, Lawrence and Richmond, who played in a pick-up tournament in Nauset Saturday and Sunday morning. The two Nantucket stand-outs, playing with fellow all-star Mike Quill of Nauset, lost to Richmond’s team early in the tournament, but beat them in the finals.
“I was tired, but you can’t slack on anything, not when you’re playing competition like that,” said Butler. “Everybody’s good. You’ve got to give it your best, and put on a good show. It’s an all-star game. It’s all about fun. It’s the one game of the year that is.”
The next level
Now that the season has wound down, Butler, who averaged 12 points a game for the 13-8 Whalers this year, hopes to take his game to the next level, and has set his sights on the University of Massachusetts-Boston, at least to start, after visiting the school with Lawrence earlier this month.
“Delroy and I are thinking about going there, and then maybe transferring to a higher-division school,” he said Tuesday. “The campus was cool, and we met some of the players. The coach was really friendly, and funny too. I’ve got to finish out the school year, and I’ve heard from some other schools too, but I’m really thinking about going there.”
Lawrence is on board with the plan, but also plays lacrosse, and is looking at perennial Div. III lacrosse powerhouse Monroe (N.Y.) Community College – where former Nantucket standout Mark Dwyer currently plays – and Newbury College.
Boys varsity head coach Beau Almodobar was in the stands for the first half of Sunday’s game, and saw it as the perfect way to end the season.
“To see the best players on the Cape, both boys and girls, coming together to play undisciplined basketball just for fun was great. It was loud, there were a lot of dunks, a lot of steals, some great passes, a lot of three-point shots. It was electrifying It’s all about making friends, and being recognized as one of the best,” he said
Perfect ending
Paterson, who finished with more than 1,000 points in her high school career and averaged 17.7 per game this year for the 19-2 Whalers, agreed.
“It was a good way to end my high school basketball career,” said Paterson, who plans to play a couple of AAU tournaments this spring, and has joined the varsity softball team. “It was fun all around, playing with people you’ve competed against, in a game that – unlike the boys – was good, close competition.”
Paterson, who plans to continue her playing career at either Westfield State College or Western New England College, where she hopes to study criminal justice or sports management, had nothing but praise for her Nantucket teammates, particularly Hanniford, a junior.
“She was always our best defensive player, and she can dribble. She’ll probably play up top next year because we’re going to be short on guards, and she’s going to go far.”
Girls varsity head coach Willis Ferreira was also quick to praise his players, and said the team will definitely miss Paterson’s presence and offensive contribution next season.
“We’ll still be strong, but we’ll miss Angela no question,” he said. “I’ve been very fortunate to have good players. Sometimes as a coach, you get too much praise when the team does well, and not enough criticism when you lose. These players make it easy to be a coach.”
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