Team Wareham rallies to beat Team Fall River in marquee matchup of 2024 Herren Shootout

FALL RIVER — Wareham has not come down from its state championship high.

Fielding the crew that three weeks ago captured the the high school's second straight Division 4 state boys basketball title on St. Patrick's Day, Team Wareham on Friday night scrapped and battled to rally past Team Fall River, featuring University of Arizona-bound Joson Sanon, in the marquee game of this weekend's Herren Shootout at the Kuss Middle School.

“We all still hang out as friends,” said Wareham all-star guard Ajay Lopes a few minutes after the final buzzer. “Most of us do spring sports, like track. But we all go to each other's houses. We still play basketball at the Y. We're all still close.”

Wareham High was recently ranked second overall in a Massachusetts High School boys basketball ranking.

Quickly down double digits in the first half, Wareham, led by Lopes (22 points), rallied to win 57-54. Aaron Cote's turnaround from just inside the foul line with 1:15 to go made it 55-54 and put Wareham ahead for good. In the remaining time, Fall River watched a Sanon 3 rattle in and out and had a missed 1-and-1.

This was expected to be a high-intensity affair. It went beyond that. Play was rough. Really rough at times. Think old school roller derby.

It was also very verbal, in a less-than-complimentary fashion. By late in the first half, the jawing between players, especially after plays involving Sanon, had started to be the norm. The often face-to-face trash talking continued to build in the second half.

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That prompted Shootout founder and director Mike Herren, with 14:44 left in the game, to grab the DJ microphone, walk out to halfcourt and let both teams know this event was not going to escalate into anything ugly. He told both teams they needed to clean up their acts or he'd stop the game.

“We're basketball players, and everybody's friends,” Herren said over the mic. “Enough of this nonsense. I'm not dealing with it. Twelve years we've been doing this thing. Twelve years.”

Herren announced that there were both a state trooper and Fall River police on hand, with more Fall River police officers coming.

He ordered the teams to line up in front of the scorer's table for a friendship/handshake line, a ritual usually reserved for postgame.

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“I think Mike calmed guys down and let guys know it's all about basketball and love,” said Fall River's and Durfee High's Davontae Stewart (nine points).

While intensity remained high for the rest of the contest, the players largey stayed out of each other's faces.

“As a community, we've got to learn, somebody gets a bucket — next play, move on,” Lopes said. “I don't really care. People talk, I just do my thing on the court.”

Sanon, a 6-foot-5 wing from Vermont Academy who played at Durfee High as a freshman, scored 22 points. Durfee's Jahmier Stephenson scored 12 points.

Fall River led this game 21-6 with just under eight minutes left in the first half. At halftime, Wareham had closed to 30-25. Fall River was back up by 11 points (39-28) when Herren hit center court.

The youngest Herren on the scene, Drew Herren, son of Chris, got a lot of minutes. The Portsmouth resident, who just completed his first season at the Wheeler School in Providence, bagged a pair of first-half 3s for six points.

Lops scored 14 second-half points, nailing a pair of 3s and going a clutch 6-for-6 at the foul line.

“We just had to pick up the energy. We just had to fight,” Lopes said. “Like what we did in the whole playoff run. We just fought and ran and did our thing, energy. We won this game because of our energy at the end of the game. It was all about energy, and intensity, too.”

The Herren Shootout continued with games running from noon to 9 p.m. on Saturday.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Team Wareham rallies to beat Team Fall River in 2024 Herren Shootout