10 Years in the Making: Red Raiders Return to MIAA Tournament

It is one of the most frustrating things in the world of sports. When a team clearly possesses the raw material for success, but can’t seem to put it all together.

That seemed to be the case with the boys basketball team in the early going of the current campaign.

With a good mix of veteran leadership and promising young talent, not to mention the return of 6-foot-9 center Andrew Scocca, who missed his entire junior year due to injury, there was cause for optimism among Red Raiders fans heading into the season.

That optimism quickly gave way to trepidation.

As they say: winning begets winning. The opposite is also true; a team that starts losing, often continues to do so.

When Melrose sputtered and fizzled its way to a 2-6 start this season—including four straight losses against Middlesex League opponents to open the year—it looked as though any hopes of ending the Red Raiders’ 10-year tourney drought may very well be dashed against the shoals of discord and animosity before the season was even halfway over.

“At the beginning of the season, we did a lot of fighting and a lot of arguing in practice,” said sophomore Matt Sherlock of the early season atmosphere surrounding the team. “But we brought it together as a team, and now we’re just working as a family.”

That may be a bit of an understatement.

Team gets hot in second half of the season

Since opening at 2-6, all the Red Raiders have done is go 9-3 the rest of the way, officially ending Melrose High’s 10-year absence from the MIAA North Sectionals on Feb. 20 with a 56-49 win over league foes Reading at the Marcoux Gym.

“The kids bought in,” said Melrose head coach Mike Kasprzak, a 1988 MHS graduate. “I don’t think there is any magic pill ... we went through a lot of tough times with this team, but we decided to stick together.”

And the results have followed.

Kasprzak points to a narrow 55-53 win at Tewksbury on Jan. 26 as the turning point for his team.

“I think it was the first Tewksbury game, at Tewksbury,” the Red Raiders’ fourth-year coach said. “We only won by one or two points, but we just stuck together.”

While it may not sound like an epic Robert Johnson-style crossroads, the unity displayed on the floor that night was something sorely lacking in previous outings.

“We had a couple of coming together moments, and that’s what it’s all about,” Kasprzak said. “Every team goes through that, we’re no different, but we didn’t quit and that’s why I’m so glad ... we’re a true team right now.”

Following its cathartic win over the Redmen of the Merrimack Valley Conference, Melrose won consecutive games for the first time all year, besting conference rivals and eventual Middlesex League runners-up Woburn 46-43 the next time out on Jan. 28, and followed that with a nervy 41-40 edging of Stoneham on Feb. 4. Modest though it may have been, it was a bona fide winning streak nonetheless, and an indicator that the worm had finally turned on the Red Raiders’ season.

The bickering and arguing of earlier on gave way to an understanding based upon mutual respect, as Team Tension was dissolved and recast into Team Tranquility.

“Through a lot of adversity, team problems and things like that, we really came together,” said Scocca, who clearly needed a few games to get his sea-legs back after his injury-provoked extended absence, but was immense for Melrose during the second half of the campaign. “This group of guys ... it’s amazing. We spend all the time in the world together, there’s no one else I would rather be in this position with.”

Though the Red Raiders’ brief winning-streak was snapped the next game, they started to build up a head of steam as the campaign drew ever closer to its end, and by the time the curtain went down on the 2010-2011 regular season following a 55-38 win over none other than the very same Tewksbury squad against whom they had begun their transformation just under a month before.

Winding up at 11-9 on the year (9-9, ML), Melrose exorcised the demons of a decade bereft of tournament basketball on the boys side of the ledger. Interestingly enough, the MHS girls team, which experienced nearly the polar opposite in terms of the success spectrum during the period (2000-2010) between now and the Red Raiders’ last tourney bid, being a near mortal lock for postseason play during that span, missed out on the tournament this year for the first time in quite a while, finishing at 5-15.

It seems its feast or famine at Melrose High when it comes to hoops.

For Kasprzak and company, it will be a moveable feast, as they will be playing their first tournament game on the road against an as yet unknown opponent.

Defense in focus as playoffs loom

If there is one area on the court that the Red Raiders struggled with more than any other this season, it is surely on defense. Melrose is 7-2 on the year when holding opponents under 50 points, and learned early on that they didn’t have the guns to get into too many shootouts with their tough Middlesex League schedule if they hoped to play on past twenty games in 2010-2011.

With Scocca--averaging just over 18 points a game this year—being the obvious focal point of the offense, it’s often down to the other four players on the court to generate offense on the rare occasions when the big man is drawing too much heat to be effective down low. Early on, the Melrose attack was naggingly inconsistent after their talented center, who, while still undecided on where to ply his trade in college, has been generating interest from programs such as WPI (Engineers’ head coach Chris Bartley was on hand for the season finale against Tewksbury).

That being the case, the Red Raiders’ deficiencies on that end of the floor assumed greater proportion as they struggled to find an offensive identity when Scocca was taken off his game.

“We really have to hold teams to under 35 when we’re struggling offensively,” Kasprzak explained. “It’s got to happen at the other end.”

Defense. That’s another area improved upon over the course of the season, and one the Red Raiders coach knows has already proven pivotal and is likely to be a determining factor in whether Melrose can extend its season past a lone tourney game.

Denzel Jones and Aaron Welch are both at the vanguard of the Red Raiders’ revitalized defending, having injected energy and tenacity into what was starting to look like a model of inefficiency earlier in the year.

Not the case any longer.

The Red Raiders’ last loss of the year was at home against Middlesex League champions Watertown (15-5) in a heartbreaking 44-42 contest that went all the way to the wire. Further evidence of their improved defending, as Watertown averaged nearly 62 points a game this year.

“Our defense has been solid (down the stretch),” said Kasprzak. “We’re doing it against some good teams ... if we’d beat Watertown, which we should have, we’d be 12-8 ...”

Perimeter shooters can ease burden on low post game

On the offensive end, the play of seniors Ryan Sherlock—Matt’s older brother—and Nate Trippe has been stalwart as always, but it is Sherlock the younger who has truly been a revelation on the perimeter. Sherlock rained jump shots over the Redmen in Melrose’s season finale to the tune of 17 points, being the main beneficiary of Tewksbury head coach Jim Sullivan opting to double the center whenever he got the ball. It’s far from the first time teams have gone that route against Scocca, and depending who the Red Raiders draw in the tourney, it may not be the last.

“A lot of our offense comes to me and Matt’s side,” said Scocca. “We like to play a lot of two-man game.

“Matt’s a great athlete, and he’s going to be a great player in the future.”

Against the Redmen, Sherlock the younger was constantly left unmarked on the wings, allowing him to show off his long-range shooting touch. At times, the inside-outside passing between Scocca and Sherlock bordered on the sublime, and they will need to both be on their games for Melrose to progress.

“We know what our strengths are,” Kasprzak said following the season finale. “Matt and Andy are playing great, the other guys are buying in, they’re reversing the ball, which we believe in big time.”

With the tournament just around the corner, Kasprzak is confident his squad are ready for the challenge. “The proof is in the pudding,” he said. “Look at how we’ve spoken.”

Scocca’s mentality heading into the postseason: all business.

“We’ve got just outwork every team, like we usually do,” he said. “We pride ourselves on working hard.”

Melrose will be easy to spot at the sectionals. They’ll be the ones with the lunch pails.