East Boston held on to win an overtime thriller against Madison Park in the Boston City League Championships title game at Madison Park tonight.
Trailing 59-58 with 34.7 seconds remaining in overtime, Eastie senior forward Kyle Fox missed a 3-pointer. His teammates missed two offensive put backs before the ball fell into junior forward Kenny Ramos’ hands. Ramos missed his own put back before putting down the winning bucket with about three seconds remaining.
“That last play was just crazy,” Ramos, who scored a team-high 16 points and earned tournament MVP honors, said after the 60-59 victory. “I just never gave up. That’s East Boston basketball at its finest right there, those last eight seconds of the ballgame.
“This game was just so big for the seniors, for the coaches, for the type of year we’ve been having so I had to do my best to get the ball, put the ball in and try to win it for my team.”
In the final 2:45 of OT, Fox scored eight of his team’s last 10 points, including two game tying buckets.
With 1:01 left in the game Madison senior guard O’Shea Joy nailed a 3-pointer to give the Cardinals a 59-56 lead. Then junior forward Will March scored to put Eastie down one before Madison Park turned the ball over to the Jets with 34.7 to play.
Joy finished with 17 points while senior center Dakim Murray led Madison Park with a game-high 18 points and junior forward David Stewart had 10.
In the girls’ championship game Fenway High avenged its loss to O’Bryant in last year’s city championship by beating the tigers 57-34. Junior point guard Tajanay Veiga-Lee took home tournament MVP honors after scoring a game-high 23 points while sophomore guard Cadieja Mathews contributed 15 and senior guard Kayla Cox had 10.
“It feels great because we got back at them this time and my team, we stepped up as a team,” Veiga-Lee said.
O’Bryant was led by junior center Kiana Daley’s 13 points.
Check back tomorrow for a full report on both games, including video highlights.
