PITTSFIELD, Mass. – Sean Harrigan scored 24 points Tuesday to lead the Taconic boys basketball team to a 71-59 win over Pittsfield at the Boys and Girls Club.
But Maimoudou Bamba had some of the biggest buckets of the night in a pivotal third-quarter run as Taconic rolled to its fifth straight win and took round one in the city rivalry series.
Bamba scored six points in a two-minute stretch to key an 11-0 Taconic run that opened up a one-point game.
Pittsfield, which had a three-point lead late in the first half, never got closer than six points the rest of the way.
“We needed that from [Bamba], too,” Taconic coach Bill Heaphy said. “[Pittsfield’s Carter Mungin] was playing well. [Bamba] had missed some opportunities in the first half, and he knew it. We talked about it.
“He came out in the third quarter and played really well and did the things he’s capable of doing.”
Bamba finished with a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds.
Harrigan also had a double-double, pulling down 11 boards to go with his game-high scoring total.
Mungin and Kenny Jackson led the Generals with 15 points and 12 points apiece.
Mungin gave Taconic fits in the first half, scoring 10 points before intermission. But he also ran into foul trouble and ended up with his fifth personal in the first minute of the fourth quarter.
“They’re big kids,” Heaphy said. “And we had to adjust. We had to scrap and fight. I thought Frank [Boua] and Jayden [McCartney] came in and gave us some pretty good minutes. Tayvon [Sandifer] had to go down low and got him into foul trouble.
“We had to take multiple bodies to deal with those two big kids, but I liked our effort.”
Mungin had a conventional three-point play in an 8-0 Pittsfield run that spanned the first and second quarter and left the Generals with a 15-13 lead on a 3-pointer by Nick Brindle (10 points).
Taconic answered with a seven-point spurt, but Pittsfield counter-punched, going up 28-25 with 1 minute, 20 seconds left in the second quarter on Brindle’s second 3 of the quarter.
Taconic led by a point at half-time, and it was still a one-point game midway through the third when Jackson scored in the post to make it 35-34, Taconic.
But moments later, Bamba put back an offensive rebound and got fouled. He completed the three-point play to ignite the 11-0 run. He had another putback later in the stretch and got to the line attempting a third putback, sinking one foul shot to make it 46-34.
Pittsfield cut the deficit to six points twice the rest of the way, the second time when Brindle scored in transition to make it 61-55 midway through the fourth.
But Taconic outscored the Generals by a margin of 10-4 the rest of the way. Harrigan had an assist and a couple of baskets in a 6-0 spurt that made it a 15-point lead in the closing seconds.
Neither Pittsfield (1-4) nor Taconic (5-1) had played a game since before New Year’s Eve due to postponements.
“You’re always worried about that because you never know what you’re going to see when you finally take the floor,” Heaphy said. “The only thing is, we were kind of both in the same boat, so I was just hoping it wasn’t going to be too ugly and undisciplined, especially being a city rivalry game.
“But we did what we tried to do. I thought we got pretty sloppy at points and didn’t use the clock in our favor. We obviously need to work more on that.”
Taconic travels to Wahconah next Monday.. Pittsfield is at Agawam on Thursday.
