Defense leads Salem boys basketball past Portsmouth in D1 semifinals (video)

DURHAM - The Salem High School boys basketball team put in the grinding early to slowly build a lead over Portsmouth and capped it off with a flawless fourth quarter, as the Blue Devils defeated the Clippers 40-26 in Wednesday's Division I semifinals at the University of New Hampshire.

The wins helps No. 2 Salem advance to their first Division I final since 2008, where it will play Saturday at 3 p.m. against No. 1 Exeter, which held off No. 4 Londonderry in the other semifinal.

It was a remarkable defensive performance by the Blue Devils. Salem (19-2) held a No. 6 Portsmouth team that came in averaging 56.3 points a contest to its lowest offensive output on the year and it was all capped off by a fourth quarter in which the Blue Devils kept Portsmouth from scoring a single point.

Salem's Jared Burns and Mike Ference were tasked with defending first-team all-stater Alex Tavares and combined to hold him to three points on 1-of-8 shooting.

“Mike Ference I thought was phenomenal,” Salem coach Rob McLaughlin said. “I thought Jared Burns did a good job on him early. We’ve been using those two guys on the other team’s best player all year. Just try to eliminate what they do, disrupt stuff, and I thought (Wednesday) they were phenomenal. I think Ference might be the best defensive player in the state.”

Portsmouth (15-6) led briefly in the first quarter but once the Blue Devils took the lead, they never gave it up. Salem led by as many as 14 points in the third quarter, and weathered a Clipper run in the third that cut the gap to four, as they went into the fourth up by eight.

The Blue Devils were led offensively by 13 points from Kyle Poulin and 10 from Zack Caraballo. Ben Laycock pulled down a game-high 14 rebounds including three on the offensive glass.

Poulin and Caraballo combined to shoot 11 of 21 from the field.

“I think we just wanted to get the best shots,” Poulin said. “Early on we saw them coming out on us so we knew we could penetrate and get to the basket. When they started closing in we kicked it out and started hitting outside shots.”

Salem dominated inside with a 24-6 advantage in points in the paint. Both teams had 13 turnovers the Blue Devils turned those takeaways into 11 points while Portsmouth could only muster two. The Blue Devils amassed a 29-24 rebounding advantage including a 17-9 gap on the boards in the second half.

The Clippers got 11 points from Calvin Hewett but had an abysmal night offensively. The Clippers shot 8 for 36 from the field and didn’t have a made field goal in the final 12:37 of the game.

“We just couldn’t make shots,” Portsmouth coach John Mulvey said. “We made eight shots the entire game. We had some wide open looks. We finally got those stops, cut it to four, and seemed like we were going to get back in the game. We just could never get over the hump and get that big shot to fall.”

The win sends Salem to its fifth title game in program history and its first since winning back-to-back titles in 2007 and 2008.