NORTH ADAMS, Mass. - The Drury boys basketball team won its fifth game in a row with a 41-34 home victory over Mahar on Tuesday.
This was the second time these two foes faced each other with Mahar getting the better of Drury (8-2) in the first match up. This time, Drury took care of business at home. It wasn’t the ideal start for either team with both struggling to limit the turnovers.
Fortunately for Drury, Miles Beauchamp was able to knock down a couple 3-pointers to get things going. He finished the game with seven points, all coming in the first quarter. Sammy Moorman led the way for Drury with 11 points and Dante Dillard added nine, while Jorge Bond scored eight.
Drury trailed after one, 9-7, and continued to trail throughout the rest of the half. It was the defensive side of the ball that kept the Blue Devils within striking distance only trailing by one at the half.
With the halftime score only 17-16 in Mahar’s favor, it was up to Drury to take control of the game in the second half, and that is exactly what they did, thanks for a big quarter from Moorman who had nine of his 11 points. He really started to find his groove scoring six straight points for Drury to give them a 25-19 lead late in the third quarter.
“We didn’t want to play at this pace, we wanted to get the game going, but they were really packing it in,” Drury coach Jack Racette said. “Mahar is a good team, but I thought we played well defensively. Sammy hit the midrange early and wasn’t trying to get all the way to the rim.”
Drury mounted an 11-2 run to take a two-point lead into the fourth quarter. In the first matchup against the Senators, Drury was up seven but only scored five points in the quarter. This time around, the Blue Devils were ready to close the game out.
After a pretty balanced fourth, Dillard got a steal at mid-court and took it all the way for the basket for an and-one to give Drury a 32-25 lead. From that point on, Drury never looked back and the game was officially sealed shut after four big free throws from Bond.
Drury will look to keep the winning streak alive when it faces Lenox on Saturday on the road.
