ANDOVER — It’s a great luxury for Andover boys basketball coach Dave Fazio to look at his backcourt and know that when the Golden Warriors need points, they are likely coming.
On Friday, inside a sold-out Dunn Gymnasium, Charlie Tutwiler and Josh Roux carried Andover when it needed it most.
No. 10 Xaverian pushed the second seed for three quarters before Roux and Tutwiler put the Golden Warriors on their backs and carried them to a 56-42 win and a spot in the D1 Final Four against Bishop Feehan, a 65-60 double overtime winner against Bridgewater-Raynham.
“In my humble opinion, I think we have the best backcourt in Massachusetts,” Fazio said. “Charlie’s our engine, and Josh is the steering wheel. Those two were just insane.”
Roux and Tutwiler combined to score 21 of Andover’s final 23 points. Roux led all scorers with 25 points while Tutwiler added 15.
Andover (21-2) needed all of those points because Xaverian (14-9) made life difficult for 24 minutes. Unfortunately for the Hawks, it was a 32-minute game.
Six straight Andover points to begin the fourth capped an 11-3 run that gave the Golden Warriors their biggest lead at 45-35.
Five straight points by the Hawks followed but Andover was simply too much down the stretch. Tutwiler drove to the bucket for two before Roux followed suit.
Another Tutwiler layup, this one with 68 seconds left, upped the lead to 52-40 and began the Andover fans celebration.
That celebration was also enabled by the Andover defense. Xaverian managed only five field goals in the second half as the Golden Warriors plan to take away the long range shot worked nearly to perfection.
“That’s a dangerous team that beat everyone this season,” Fazio said of Xaverian. “The plan was to defend the arc and they got us a few times but all in all it was tremendous. Our defense is what’s got us here.”
There was nothing to choose between the teams for the first 16 minutes as they traded the lead 10 times and no one led by more than four points as Andover carried a 28-27 lead into the break.
They extended that margin to 34-27 at the start of the third before Xaverian had another run in them, cutting the lead to two before Andover’s dynamic backcourt took over.
