By Jim Clark
FITCHBURG -- Central Mass. basketball teams had better hope that Fitchburg High is not still shaking off the rust. Playing just their third game of the season because of postponements, the Red Raiders showed no ill effects Friday night in rolling to an 88-59 win over Marlboro at the Academy Street Gym.
Highlighting the win for the Red Raiders (3-0) was a career-high 38 point effort from junior Ricky Morales, but the rest of the team played a part in forcing 31 Marlboro turnovers.
I'm very pleased with it," said FHS coach Doug Grutchfield, "We had a long layoff again, and we're starting the three football players, but we're finally coming around. Marlboro is a good team."
The Panthers won their first five games before stumbling recently against Shepard Hill, but they couldn't solve the Fitchburg pressure.
"We knew it was gong to be tough coming in here," said first year coach Tom Lambert, who played for Fitchburg in the 1980s. "I played here; it's a tough plaace to play."
Malboro never led and was even only at 4-4 after a pair of rebound buckets by Ken Robbins (17 points). With Robbins the only returning starter, the Panters soon found themselves struggling to get into the halfcourt game as the Raiders had 11 steals among the 18 Marlboro turnovers in the first half.
Morales got himself going with six straight points, giving FHS the lead for good with a jumper from the left corner and then converting consecutive feeds from older brother Tito Maorales (8 points, 3 assists).
Marlboro was still within a dozen at 26-14 with less than five minutes left in the half when Morales took over. In a span of two minutes, Morales buried a pair of three ponters, flushed home a dunk after a steal by Ray Gonzales (14 points) and converted a rare four point play when he was fouled while drainging yet another three.
Morales had 24 points and 5 steals in the first half as Fitchburg took a 50-27 lead into intermission.
"Morales is a great player, and that's against a box-and-one," Lambert said. "I had never seen him play before, but the kid stepped it up. He's a player."
"The credit goes to the other kids, too," Grutchfield added. "They get him the ball and he gets open. Even though he had 38, it's a team concept."