Danny Mello's favorite sport at Peabody High is baseball. Everybody knows it, including Tanners basketball coach Chris Mastrangelo.

So when the 5-foot-9 point guard tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee in a hoop game against Waltham last winter, it was a devastating blow. Mello was out for the second half of the basketball season and lost his entire baseball season.

Mastrangelo wouldn't have been surprised or disappointed if Mello had put basketball away for good following the injury.

"Nobody would have blamed him," said Mastrangelo. "He's a very good baseball player."

But Mello is an even better leader and teammate. He had surgery at Beverly Hospital last Feb. 17 and while he rehabbed in private, he wasn't about to brood at home. He showed up at every basketball practice and game for the remainder of the year and did the same thing throughout the baseball season.

It killed him not to play, but he had responsibilities he felt he had to live up to.

Mello was a captain-elect for basketball this season and wanted to see it through to the end. He volunteered to coach Peabody's summer league team and followed his doctor's orders so that he could be ready this winter.

As much as he loves baseball, it could wait.

"I had a lot of time to think about it," said Mello. "Everyone knows baseball is my sport, but I've also played basketball my whole life and wasn't going to quit. With medicine the way it is nowadays, I wasn't worried about my knee.

"Even when I was hurt, I felt I was still part of the team and I wanted to stay involved. Coach Mastrangelo depends on the captains to organize the summer league team and I figured if they didn't have a coach, it would be a good time for me to do it."

It would be nice to report that Mello is averaging 18 points and eight assists per game this season, but he's not that kind of player and Peabody isn't that kind of team. The 7-7 Tanners have to scrap and claw for everything and, in that context, Mello has been a huge plus.

He's averaging 81/2 points, three assists and two steals. He had a career high 30 points, including the key points in overtime, in a big win over Saugus, and had another strong game against Revere, scoring 18.

Mello is everything that Mastrangelo could have asked for - and more.

"His role is getting us under control at both ends of the floor," Mastrangelo said of Mello, who ranks in the top 10 percent of his class academically. "He's a really good on-the-ball defender. He's had to defend the other team's toughest guards, like Junior Lugo of Salem and Mike Clayton of Beverly. He's gotten big baskets for us and, overall, he's a very intelligent player.

"But you know what? Danny would be valuable to us even if he didn't score a single point. He didn't have to come back, but he took his captaincy very seriously."

Mello is loving the atmosphere of Peabody's first season in the Northeastern Conference. He cites games against Beverly, Lynn Classical and Salem as examples where the player/crowd intensity really stood out. "We're into it (as players) and I think the crowds are way better (than most Greater Boston League games)," said Mello.

With the Tanners on the proverbial bubble, the goal now is to help the team qualify for the state tournament.

"The coaches have said that we've made the state tourney for seven straight years," said Mello. "We don't want to break that streak."

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Swampscott coach Paul Moran likes the way his team has evolved en route to a 9-4 record this season. In the early games, John Beaulieu and Craig Rodenstein did the heavy scoring, which is what the team needed.

But as Swampscott's football players rounded into basketball shape, the emphasis changed. Beaulieu and Rodenstein are still averaging in the teens and getting plenty of help from their teammates.

"It's a good group of kids accepting of their roles," said Moran. "Trevor Wheeler and Ryan Squires (25 trifectas) are doing more on offense, and we have kids like Charlie Baker, (Kimpson) Jean and Mike Nimkar contributing in different ways. We don't need to rely on two big scorers. We've become more well-rounded."

Scott Leffler has really picked up his game for the Big Blue, averaging 10 points and 12 rebounds. "He's a moose," Moran said of the 6-foot-4 Leffler. "He's been playing phenomenal."

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North Shore Tech is saddled with a 4-8 record and is sometimes overmatched against the bigger schools in the Commonwealth Conference, but head coach Jody Norton isn't worried about his team's attitude falling apart.

"We take our lumps with an unbalanced schedule, but the leadership of Billy Ahearn and Eric Smith has been exceptional," said Norton.

Ahearn, a 5-11 guard, and Smith, a 5-11 center, are both from Salem. Ahearn has fulfilled a scoring need for the Bulldogs and is up to 14 ppg., and Smith has to do the dirty work underneath as an undersized center. Norton calls Smith the unsung hero because he also has to defend the opposing team's best player on most occasions.

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Masconomet coach Ben Hodges likes to say that Clay Cleveland is the kind of player that will grow on you. Hodges jokes that he can barely slip a piece of paper under his feet when Cleveland jumps, but the Chieftains coach marvels at the way Cleveland gets his team 14 points and 7.3 rebounds per game.

"Clay is a 6-footer who plays like he's 6-3," said Hodges, whose team has won 10 of its last 11 games. "He's so physically strong that he's a tough matchup for anybody underneath. He's great at setting screens and sealing his position. He's not going to outleap you, but he uses his body extremely well."

The rebounding of Cleveland and James Riordan (10 points, 9 rebounds in a 61-39 win over Newburyport last week) is even more crucial with 6-4, 260-pound Teddy Reed missing a few games with an ankle injury. Ipswich had 18 second chance points in its 51-48 upset win over Masconomet.

Hodges lauded the way coach Doug Woodworth has brought Ipswich along following a slow start. The Tigers shocked Masco, 51-48, last week on a last-second shot.

"Doug has a good group of kids that plays really hard," said Hodges. "Ipswich has had some bad luck with free throws in a couple of games. I think they were 4-for-19 (from the line) in a close loss to Georgetown a couple of weeks ago, but they've improved a lot since then. They gave us all we could handle and beat us."

In The Paint, a column on North Shore high school boys basketball, appears every Tuesday during the season in the Salem News. Staff writer Mike Grenier can be reached at 978-338-2676 or by e-mail at mgrenier@salemnews.com