Northborough seventh grade basketball team wins championship

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Northborough seventh grade basketball team wins championship
Member’s of this year’s Metrowest champion seventh grade Northborough basketball team pose for a group photo. (Photo/Submitted)

NORTHBOROUGH – It took a gritty comeback and overtime heroics, but Northborough’s seventh grade boys travel basketball team found a way to notch a major win earlier this month, securing a tournament championship in their Metrowest league.

Composed of 16 teams from across the region, that bracket had Northborough run through three teams prior to a finals clash with Framingham on March 13. The squad embraced an underdog identity, according to coach Ed Perry, on their way to victory.

“It was pretty incredible,” Perry told the Community Advocate last week.

Northborough nabs comeback, OT win

Northborough played Framingham down to the wire, trailing by six points with less than a minute left in the game. 

One of their players scored, though, drawing a foul and then making a free throw to halve that lead. 

Northborough rebuffed Framingham’s attempt to answer, retaking possession with 20 seconds on the clock. 

They looked for a lane to the basket for roughly 15 seconds before Colin Perry drained a game-tying three point shot as the game clock ticked close to 0:00. 

That sent this game into a two-minute overtime session, where Northborough managed to snag a narrow 43-42 win that was secured, in part, by a pair of free throw points from Michael Lefebvre

“It was fitting,” Perry said of the hard-fought nature of this contest.

“There were no easy games [this year],” he continued.

‘We kind of had a chip on our shoulder’ 

This team has remained relatively unchanged in terms of its makeup for roughly three years, according to Perry.

It has suffered tournament heartbreaks along the way, though, creating a sense of drive this spring as players concluded another season.

“We went in healthy and kind of had a chip on our shoulder going into it,” Perry said of this end-of-season tournament schedule. “They rallied and then got it done.”

For players, he said, the win now comes as a valuable memory, milestone and motivator for future athletic involvement.  

“It’s huge,” Perry said. “It builds confidence in them. They worked towards a goal. They know how it was to get there.”

This year’s champion Northborough boys seventh grade travel basketball team included Eric Kerxhalli,Jasper Gorgone, Perry, Jake Craver, Lefebvre, Timothy Ryan,Gavin McGrath, Kyle Locke and Justin Pirozzi. 

The team was assistant coached by Greg Locke.

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