Bond, Blue Devils Back in Western Mass Final
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – The Drury boys basketball team Saturday executed its defensive gameplan nearly to perfection in a 76-43 win over Palmer that sent the Blue Devils back to the Western Massachusetts Class C title game.
Jorge Bond led the Blue Devils on offense with 26 points as top-seeded Drury won its 10th straight game and held an opponent to 47 points or fewer for the fourth time in five outings.
To accomplish that feat on Saturday, Drury needed to slow down Palmer junior Taydem Haley, who scored his 1,000th career point two days earlier in the Western Mass quarter-finals.
Haley ended the night with just two points on a field goal in the fourth quarter, long after the game was decided.
“We stopped their 1,000-point scorer,” Drury coach Jack Racette said. “And that was the game plan going in. Our lengthy players – [Shane] Faucher and [Sam] Bullett, those guys did a great job on him. That was the key to stopping him.
“And if the other guys hurt us, they hurt us.”
In the first half, one of those other guys, Palmer senior Stephen Fredette, did inflict some pain, scoring 13 points and collecting six rebounds to help keep the Panthers within single digits.
But Drury held Fredette scoreless and held Palmer to just 18 points in the second half as the Blue Devils pulled away.
“I was a little worried in the first half because [Fredette] was hurting us,” Racette said. “But as the game wore on, and the pace of the game got faster, I think it got to him a little bit.”
Drury’s offense got into gear in the second quarter. Not surprisingly, Bond had a lot to do with it.
The Blue Devils led, 20-19, midway through the second quarter when the Drury sharp-shooter set up Brayden Durant (11 points) for a 3-pointer to make it a four-point margin.
Bond then scored three straight times, including a triple, to extend what became a 14-2 run. Bond’s drive from the left wing capped the run with a 34-21 lead, and the Blue Devils ended up with a 34-25 lead going into the locker room.
In the third quarter, Bond scored eight more points to help extend the margin. Bond’s conventional three-point play with 1:10 left in the quarter made it 51-30.
The knockout blow came in the fourth, when Faucher (12 points) scored six points in a 12-0 run to make it 63-32 with 4:55 left to play.
Racette credited Drury’s tough schedule in the Berkshire County League for his team’s ability to impose its will as the game went on. All six of the league’s teams made the Western Mass tourney and three of them: Hoosac Valley (Class D), Drury (Class C) and Pittsfield (Class B) will be playing in regional finals this week.
“I’ve said it right from the get-go,” Racette said. “The Pittsfields, the Wahconahs, the Monuments of the world – they just make us better for takes like this.
“‘We don’t wear down late in games. You could see [Palmer was] wearing down late in the game. It’s a tribute to the schedule and to the conditioning these kids are in.”
Drury, which dropped a 62-60 decision to Granby in last winter’s Western Mass final, learns Sunday who it will face in this year’s final. No. 2 Greenfield hosts No. 3 Ware on Sunday afternoon in the other half of the draw.