Sacred Heart boys basketball won’t be playing for a state championship this season. Let that sentence sink in for a second.
The last time the Hearts didn’t play for a state title, it was the 2012-2013 season. Sacred Heart went 6-14 that season and missed the Class M state playoffs. That was before Mustapha Heron arrived on South Elm Street. Heron teamed up with the likes of Ty Flowers, Malik Petteway and Charles Fisher, and the rest is history.
Sacred Heart, the No. 4 seed in the 2018-2019 Division I state tournament, was defeated 73-66 by No. 5 Trumbull in a quarterfinal round game on Monday night at a packed Pomperaug High School in Southbury. The Hearts finished the season with a record of 23-2.
“To say it stinks not getting [to Mohegan Sun Arena] is absolutely the case, but we couldn’t quite get there this year,” coach Jon Carroll said in an interview with Joe Palladino for The Zone.
The Hearts led the Eagles by six points early in the fourth quarter, but the FCIAC representative started rallying and didn’t stop. Foul shooting certainly helped as Trumbull buried 26 of 33 from the line, according to Palladino’s stats. Sacred Heart made nine of 16 attempts at the charity stripe.
Sacred Heart’s size was well-known, but Trumbull has some bigs as well. Timmon Williams, who led all scorers with 31 points, is 6-foot-3. Evan Gutkowski, who had three blocks, is 6-6. Chris Brown, who is 6-3, tallied 21 points. Two players on the Eagle roster are listed at 6-7.
The point is Trumbull is no slouch. The Eagles went 17-3 in the regular season and were the top seed in the FCIAC Tournament. Trumbull was knocked out by No. 5 Ridgefield, the eventual champion, in the FCIAC semifinal round, but it was able to regroup.
In the past five seasons, Sacred Heart went to five straight state finals. It won championships in the first four of those five years, and it took a strong Notre Dame-Fairfield squad to knock off the Hearts in the Division I final to prevent a five-peat.
This year wasn’t Sacred Heart’s year, but Trumbull had something to do with it. The quarterfinal was the last game for Heart seniors Omar Rowe and Jamaal Waters, along with Brady Perrotti and Nyron Drunnamanio.
