The first Bristol city basketball matchups of the abbreviated 2021 season have been played, and the winners were the Bristol Central boys and the Bristol Eastern girls.
The Ram boys won, 66-51, at Bristol Eastern High School behind Donovan Clingan’s 37 points. The Bristol Press’ Matt Hornick reported that nearly all of those points were on dunks. Clingan is a problem for everyone he plays against, so that’s no slight against Eastern. Clingan also had 18 rebounds and four blocked shots, according to Eastern stats guru Mike Letendre, who also writes for The Bristol Edition website. Letendre noted that Clingan tied his career-high with 37 points. There’s a good chance he tops that high in this season or the next.
Eli Parent led the Lancers with 18 points.
The Lancer girls won, 69-37, at Bristol Central behind a near triple-double from Ciara Collins. Collins put up 29 points, 14 rebounds and six assists. Sage Scarritt added a double-double of 12 points and 12 rebounds, according to Letendre. Cali Doyon and Alyssa Kehler each scored 10 points for the Lancers.
Ella Watson led Central with 10 points.
The next installment of the city games comes on March 11. The Central boys host Eastern while the Lancer girls entertain the Rams. The girls game is scheduled for 5:30, the boys at 6:45 (two different sites).
Notes: Clingan is averaging 36 points, 14.5 rebounds and 3.5 blocks per game for the Central boys. Collins is averaging 27 points per game for the Eastern girls.
