DALTON, Mass. – Getting his 1,000th point on Thursday night did more than give Pat McLaughlin another place on Wahconah’s all-time athletic honor roll.
It helped propel him to points 1,001 through 1,010 and a 65-60 win over West Springfield.
McLaughlin went into the Suburban North Division showdown needing 16 points to reach the milestone.
He got it with a 3-pointer late in the third quarter to give his team a 42-39 lead.
Then, after scoring just seven points combined in the second and third quarters, McLaughlin went on a tear, scoring 10 points in the fourth to help his team outscore the Terriers by a 21-16 margin over the last eight minutes to secure the win.
“It’s definitely in the back of my head coming into the game,” McLaughlin said of the 1,000th point. “But once that got out of the way, we had a nice little run. It was a nice little relief, and it was good to get the ‘W.’ “
McLaughlin’s coach saw – and heard – the sense of relief that washed over the two-sport standout.
“I think at the end of the day, you say all the right things, you do all the right things, and, certainly, Pat’s focus was on winning the game,” Dustin Belcher said. “But it’s looming, right? It’s out there. So once he got there, there was an exhale. I heard his exhale in the gym. It was like, ‘Finally, it’s here.’ “
After a brief pause to honor McLaughlin’s accomplishment, West Side briefly pulled ahead, 44-42, before Sam McLaughlin (12 points) beat the buzzer with a shot to send the teams to the fourth quarter tied.
The McLaughlin brothers then dominated the final eight minutes, with Sam hitting a pair of 3-pointers and Pat adding 10 points, starting with a triple to give Wahconah a 50-44 lead with 6 minutes, 25 seconds left to play.
West Side got back to within three, but Pat McLaughlin pulled down a defensive rebound and scored in transition to start an 8-4 run that ended with a pair of free throws from Aidan Hagmaier (eight points) to make it 64-57 with 22 seconds on the clock.
A lot of the crowd came to Wahconah expecting to see a typically big night from the senior McLaughlin, who came in averaging around 30 points per game this winter.
And, early on, it looked like he would get No. 1,000 out of the way relatively quickly.
McLaughlin’s nine-point first quarter helped Wahconah take a 14-10 lead.
But West Springfield turned up the heat defensively, holding McLaughlin to just two points in the second quarter, when he also picked up his third foul of the night in the closing moments.
“That was just kind of a frustration foul on my part,” McLaughlin said. “That was a little selfish. I can’t be doing that. I stayed out of foul trouble the second half. So I just kind of had to man up, be mature about it and stay in the game for my team.”
Fortunately for Wahconah, it got scoring from six other players in the second quarter, including four from Hagmaier, to stay even with the Terriers. Landon Corcoran hit his second 3-pointer of the game with an assist from Sam McLaughlin with 45 seconds left in the half to send Wahconah into the locker room up, 31-29.
The visitors scored the first four points of the third quarter, but Wahconah went on an 11-6 run that ended with McLaughlin becoming the 11th Wahconah student-athlete to score 1,000 points -- on shot off an assist from Cole Rapkowicz on the left wing -- to make it 42-39.
“I’m happy for him,” Belcher said. “The work he puts in – it’s a kid who is in the gym all the time, works year round at his craft. And he had a tough start. He missed his whole freshman year with an injury, missed some games his sophomore year.
“And to be able to do it was a pretty impressive accomplishment.”
Wahconah (5-4) goes to the Boys and Girls Club in Pittsfield on Tuesday to take on the Generals.
