PAWTUCKET --- With three starters out of action and one of the top teams in southeastern Massachusetts coming to town for a non-league matchup, the prospects of St. Raphael Academy ending its six-game losing streak on Monday night did not look good.

But the two starters that did play, senior center Jeff Holmes and senior forward Doug Hopper, made their presences felt for the Saints in their duel with New Bedford High. Holmes had a game-high 19 points and 18 rebounds and Hopper added 14 points and nine boards to lead the Saints to a 59-53 victory.

"It’s nice to get back on track," added SRA coach Tom "Saar" Sorrentine, whose club is now 9-8. "We just have to build on this game and see if we can come up with a little win streak."

Holmes, who at 6-foot-7, was the tallest player in the contest, looked like a man among boys as he had his way in the paint with the Whalers and their two tallest players, 6-foot-4 center Michael Tetreault (16 points) and 6-foot-3 forward Michael Conrad. No one on the Whalers had more than eight rebounds.

Holmes netted nine of his points in the first 7:47 of the game to help the Saints cop a 21-10 command and concluded the half with 15 -- including four on a pair of crowd-pleasing dunks and his final two on a jumper with 3.4 seconds on the clock -- to give his team a 32-24 lead at the break.

"Jeff had a good night," said Sorrentine. "They had a tough time matching up with him."

Unfortunately for Holmes, he picked up his third foul in the early stages of the second half and his fourth with 11:20 to go in the game. When Sorrentine sent him to the bench, the Saints held a 39-31 lead, but when the Whalers responded to his absence by scoring eight of the next 10 points to trim their deficit to two with 8:47 to play, Holmes returned to action.

The Whalers then knotted the score on a layup by Nate Miller (13 points), and with 7:07 on the clock, the visitors grabbed their first lead of the night on a short hookshot by Tetreault.

But that also turned out to be the Whalers’ lone lead of the night. Hopper quickly tied the score by picking off a pass at midcourt and cruising in for an easy layup, and after another Whaler turnover, Angelo Santos tucked in a rebound off a missed layup by Holmes to give the Saints back the lead.

With 5:11 on the clock, Holmes made it a two-possession game by burying a pair of free throws, and after both teams struggled to find their shot over the next 90 seconds, Santos made good on a layup that extended the Saints’ lead to 49-43 with 3:27 to play and forced the Whalers to call a time-out.

Holmes eventually fouled out of the game with 2:30 to go, and in the final minutes, the Whalers managed to cut their deficit to three on three occasions. But they soon had to resort to fouling, and the Saints iced the victory by going 6-for-8 from the line in the final 42.1 seconds.

With starting guards Justin Maneca, Mike Holland, and James McKnight out of the lineup, Sorrentine needed a few players to step up and carry the slack, and he ended up getting solid efforts from a number of players, starting with Santos, a senior forward who contributed 13 points and a strong showing on the boards.

"Angelo played well for us tonight," noted Sorrentine. "We needed him on the boards, and he and Hopper helped Jeff out. … The guys that haven’t really played all year ended up stepping up, and (junior guard Elray) Symonds and (sophomore guard Jean) Roussel also did a good job."

The Whalers, who turned the ball over just 16 times (SRA had 25), fell to 8-7 and need to win two of their final five games in order to return to the Division 1 South Sectional playoffs after a year’s absence.

The Saints will try to bump their win streak to two tomorrow night when they return home for a tough test against Division 1-South leading North Kingstown High. The Skippers, who feature one of the tallest teams in the state, are fresh off last week’s big triumph over Woonsocket High that knocked the Villa Novans from the unbeaten ranks.