Phejarasai (23 pts) leads Malden past Medford, 57-53

Golden Tornados get full team effort in second-straight GBL victory

By Steve Freker

They used to call Sugar Ray Robinson the toughest pound-for-pound fighter in boxing history.

Malden High boys basketball coach Don Nally calls his sophomore point guard Ethan Phejarasai one of the toughest players he ever coached, period. “Ethan [Phejarasai] is just solid out there, handling the ball, on defense and when he gets his openings, scoring points for us,” Nally, who is halfway through his 19th season at the helm for Malden, said.

On Jan. 4, Phejarasai did all that Nally said of him – and more – in a 57-53 win over Medford on the road, Malden’s second Greater Boston League (GBL) win of the week. The win lifted Malden to 3-2 GBL (3-5 overall), good for third place as of that day. Phejarasai led the way with a career-high 23 points for the night, spread out evenly throughout the game. The 5-7 sophomore used a variety of ways to score: a couple of “threes,” several pull-up jumpers and some crucial free throws.

No free throws were more important than Phejarasai’s last two nothing-but-netters. Malden was up a point, 51-50, with Medford coming all the way back from an 8-point deficit in the final minute and change, 1:08 remaining on the play clock. Malden was in the bonus and in possession, expecting Medford to foul and put the visiting Tornados on the foul line.

“They were walking off the court toward our bench and Ethan’s saying ‘Get me the ball, I’ll make the free throws,’” Nally recalled, as the Tornados tried to remake “Hoosiers.”

  Wouldn’t you know, the Malden kid was right. Swish, swish. Three-point lead.

Here comes Medford with 11 seconds left and down three, 56-53. After a Medford timeout, everyone in Mustang-land and his or her brother knew the Mustangs would try and get the ball in to senior Justin Martino, Medford’s quarterback, best baseball player – and on this night – the biggest scorer of the night with 21 points, before Phejarasai’s free throws. Trouble is, Medford seemed to forget what they drew up in the timeout huddle. The ball went in to someone else, and as the clock ticked down, Marino did eventually get his hands on the ball, but it was too late and the home team never even got a shot off! One more Phejarasai free throw created the four-point win as the final score.

Malden got some solid efforts from everyone who got on the court. Senior captain Zeke Noelsaint had a quiet scoring night, netting just 8 points, but he feasted on rebounds with 11 and also had a whopping 7 blocked shots; almost all of them transitioned into fastbreak layups, mostly by Phejarasai.

Seniors Yandel Huynh (6 points) and Savion Silva-Clark (5 points) gave quality minutes that night, as did junior forward Earl Fevrier (8 points), who took some key sections of land under the Malden basket as his own and hit 4 putback layups in the fourth quarter to extend the Malden lead.

Sophomore 6-5 center Kaua Fernandes Dias (7 rebounds) and De’Shawn Bunch (5 points) also gave solid minutes for Malden. Tiny (only 4) turnover numbers also sealed the deal.

“We just saw something positive out of everyone who played,” Coach Nally said. “We needed it, too, with Medford playing very well.”