East Providence advances in D-I boys' hoops tourney

Townies survive upset bid of Hope

EastBayRI.com ·

EAST PROVIDENCE — “Survive and advance” is the credo of late-February/March basketball no matter the level, and the East Providence High School boys’ team exemplified that Friday night, Feb. 24, in the opening round of the Division I championship tournament.

The Townies, seeded fifth, needed to rally from a deep first-half hole to eventually dispatch 12th-seeded Hope, 63-53. The locals improved to 13-6 in league games this winter while Hope saw its season end with a 6-13 record.

East Providence, which had defeated the Blue Wave by 13 points (67-54) in the only regular season meeting of the teams, moves into the quarterfinal round of the tourney early next week on the road at fourth-seeded Mt. Pleasant.

Like the Townies, Mt. Pleasant needed to fend off the upset bid of 13th-seeded Woonsocket Friday, rallying from an eight-point halftime deficit to beat the Villa Novans, 60-56. The Kilties, who improved to 14-5 in league games, only sealed the win at the foul line in the final 30 seconds. Meanwhile, Woonsocket also saw its winter end with a 6-13 mark.

Friday, the Townies trailed from the outset, eventually finding themselves down by a whopping 14 points midway through the first period. But E.P. quickly sliced 10 points off that margin and would come all the way back to level the score at 29 by the break. In the second half, the Townies upped their defensive intensity while sophomore point guard Dion Hazard found his offensive touch, scoring 12 of his 14 points over the final 16 minutes to help guide the locals to the win.

Kyerstan Casey paced the Townies and all scorers with a night best 23 points. Deyshawn Tengbeh, like Hazard, had 14. Juston Williams chipped in eight.

“It was a very good win. Hope isn’t a bad team. They’re physical,” said EPHS head coach Joe Andrade, who picked up the first postseason win of his varsity career. “But we settled down, started to play well defensively and Juston was a really big spark plug for us off the bench.”

As for their next outing, the Townies and Mt. Pleasant played just once this winter. E.P. earned a 68-62 victory over the visiting Kilties back on February 3. Tengbeh led three Townies in double digits with 19. Casey had 16 and Hazard 12.