PITTSFIELD, Mass. – At one level, Friday’s Pittsfield-Taconic boys basketball game was a tale of two halves, two Taconic comebacks and two very different results.
In the first half, the Thunder rallied from an eight-point deficit late in the second quarter to tie the game at intermission.
In the second half, Taconic clawed out of a 12-point hole with three minutes left to make it a one-possession game.
But Pittsfield got three points in the closing seconds from Malachi Perry and hung on for a 68-62 win and a split in the city rivalry series.
Da’Sean “Nunu” Brown scored 17 points, and Patrick Brennan added 16 – all in the second half – as
Pittsfield won its second straight and improved to 8-5 this winter.
The Generals never trailed after Brown’s 3-pointer gave them a 12-11 lead at the end of a low-scoring first quarter.
Pittsfield forced 14 Taconic turnovers in the first half and held the Thunder to just 16 points through the first 14 minutes of the game.
“[Defense] has been the goal since before tryouts,” Pittsfield coach Jerome Edgerton said. “Since the end of our last game last year, the goal has been to be a better defensive program. And early in the season, we were trying to find ourselves.
“After the Agawam loss [on Jan. 11], we went back to the drawing board and changed the practices. We really just started to work on defensive skill building, offensive skill building, playing together as a team and instilling the confidence into the players.”
In back-to-back sequences, steals at one end of the court led to easy points for Perry at the other end: first at the foul line and then a lay-up to give Pittsfield a 24-16 lead with two minutes left in the first half.
But Taconic got off the mat and fought its way back into the game at the foul line, making five of nine attempts at the stripe and using a drive to the basket by Jamal Sistrunk (11 points) in a span of 1 minute, 30 seconds to get within three points at 27-24.
Then Ceasar Santos (19 points) completed the comeback with a 3-pointer to send Taconic into the locker room tied, 27-27.
After seeing an eight-point advantage evaporate so quickly, Edgerton needed to get his team refocused during half-time.
“We came in the locker room, and we felt like toward the end of the second quarter, we got away from the defensive discipline, the defensive gameplan,” he said. “That’s why they were able in that spurt to … come back and tie the game.
“We came back to the locker room and regained the composure, regained the discipline and just kept working at it.”
Whatever Edgerton said worked, because the Generals came out of the locker room on a 10-0 run.
First, Brennan scored with an assist from Perry. Then Marcello Ariente (10 points) hit his second 3-pointer of the game. Shepardson scored in transition to make it 34-27, and Perry (14 points) capped the run with a 3-pointer to give the Generals a 10-point bulge with fewer than two minutes gone in the third quarter.
Pittsfield maintained that working margin most of the second half.
One problem for Taconic was that it lost the services of senior Christian Maturevich to an injury early in the second quarter. Another problem was the play of Pittsfield senior Brenna, who caught fire late in the quarter, scoring seven straight for his team, the last three on a triple to make it 54-41.
“It was my last second half playing at the Club against Taconic in my life, so I knew I had to change something, and I knew I had to go for it, and I did,” Brennan said.
“I grew up playing here. I’ve played here my whole life. I’ve shot thousands of shots on these hoops. So I knew I could do it. I knew I could make those shots, and I did.”
Edgerton knew it too.
“This young man, he plays all over the floor,” Edgerton said. “He’s an inside-out player – not only offensively but defensively. He takes on some of the toughest assignments. He has to play big. He has to play strong. He plays hard on the defensive end, and then the offense comes. He’s one of our best shooters. He was lighting it up yesterday. He was lighting it in pregame.
“I was watching him. So I knew he was going to have a big game. I was waiting for the moment. When his moment came, this senior young man stepped up.”
With fewer than four minutes left in regulation, Brennan converted an assist from Briawn Thompson to give Pittsfield a 63-51 lead.
But Taconic had one more run left in it, an 11-2 stretch that was interrupted only by a pair of Brown free throws.
Martin Boua (17 points, 12 rebounds) had four points in the run for the Thunder. With 40 seconds on the
clock, Sistrunk sank a 3-pointer from the right wing to make it 65-62.
After a Taconic timeout, Pittsfield brought the ball into the front court, and Taconic was forced to foul Perry on the right wing with 16 seconds left.
He went to the line and made his first free throw to give Pittsfield a four-point margin. He then missed the second, and McGrath got the rebound for the Thunder.
But before Taconic could advance the ball, Brown made a steal in the back court and got the ball to Perry, who laid it in to put Pittsfield up, 68-62.
With time running down, Taconic got off an off-target 3-pointer at the other end, and the buzzer sounded to send the Generals off with the victory.
Pittsfield will look to build on the momentum of the rivalry win when they host Agawam on Tuesday under the dome on East Street.
Taconic (10-3) also plays Tuesday night at home against Monument Mountain.
