Hornets Fall in Double Overtime

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – Grafton Tolopko scored 18 points Friday to lead the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter boys basketball team to a 58-55, double-overtime win over McCann Tech.

 

Lobsang Rabten added 17 points, including 9-for-10 shooting at the free throw line in the fourth quarter and the OT periods for the Dragons, who avenged a Dec. 22 loss to the Hornets and snapped McCann Tech’s five-game winning streak.

 

Tolopko drained a 3-pointer to open the second overtime period and later hit a pair of free throws in the session, which saw PVCICS go up by as many as seven points with 34 seconds to play.

 

“I thought we held [Tolopko] pretty good for most of the night, and then on the first play of the second overtime, he’s wide open,” McCann Tech coach Chris Bullett said. “I mean, we were concentrating on him all night. Didn’t lose him all night.

 

“He made some tough shots, but that one was a killer. You start the second overtime with the guy we want to take away hitting the big 3. I think that was probably the momentum play of the game.”

 

Jaydon Dimitropolis scored 14 points, and Zachary Howland added 10 to lead the Hornets, who got 19 rebounds from Sabin Sciacca.

 

Team rebounding and second-chance points were two big reasons McCann Tech was able to hang with the Dragons in regulation, when points were hard to come by for both teams.

 

“We did a good job of that,” Bullett said. “And that’s something we’ve been improving on throughout the season. Marquese Moody has been really, really changing the way that we can rebound from the corner. He’s pretty athletic, so he gets up pretty well. And he’s made a big difference.

 

“As soon as I subbed him in in the first half, he started getting offensive rebounds and a couple of baskets there, too.”

 

Moody finished with nine points in the loss.

 

PVCICS used a 7-0 spurt at the end of the first quarter to take the game’s biggest lead at 15-8.

 

McCann Tech answered right away to start the second when Howland drove the baseline for a score, Vernie Percy scored in the post and Howland knocked down a 3-pointer to tie it.

 

From there, it was back and forth all night with nobody able to lead by more than four until double OT.

Rabten hit a pair of free throws midway through the fourth quarter to give the Dragons a 36-32 lead.

 

It took McCann Tech a couple of minutes and five possessions, but it finally tied the game, 36-36, on a pair of Dimitropolis free throws with 2 minutes, 12 seconds on the clock.

 

The next time the Hornets went down the court, Howland got to the line with 1:54 left and gave McCann Tech its first lead since 6-5 with a pair of free throws.

 

The last two minutes of regulation, like the rest of the game, belonged to the defense, but Nate Tuttle scored in the post for the Dragons with 35 seconds left to tie it, 38-38.

 

The Hornets ran the clock down to 9.3 seconds and called timeout.

 

Coming out of the huddle, McCann Tech got a 3-point try in the right wing corner that was off the mark, and by the time the rebound went out of bounds to PVCICS, just .6 seconds remained on the clock.

 

“It was one of [the shots we wanted],” Bullett said. “We were going to take a dive to the basket or a three in the corner. I mean, we would have been alright with attacking … but the 3 works. We got one of the two things we wanted. It was kind of the way we drew it up. But it was chaos at the same time.”

 

PVCICS took a four-point lead with 1:21 left in the first overtime, but the Hornets held the Dragons scoreless on their last three possessions, forcing turnovers on two of them.

 

Meanwhile, Dimitropolis scored a second-chance basket in the post after a Rougeau rebound to make it 45-43. And after getting possession on another Rougeau rebound with 23.8 on the clock, Rougeau got to the foul line at the other end with 5.2 seconds left and made both to tie it and send it to a second OT.

 

Tolopko’s triple gave PVCICS a lift to start the second overtime, but the knockout blow was a 6-0 Dragon run that included a Tuttle bucket in the post and a combined 4-for-4 at the line from Tolopko and Rabten to make it 56-49 with 34.9 on the clock.

 

Moody made a 3 for McCann Tech, but Rabten made two more foul shots with 13.4 on the clock to push the margin back to six.

 

Rougeau closed the scoring with a triple with 1 second on the clock.

 

McCann Tech (9-4) will try again for its 10th win on Monday when it makes the short trip west to Mount Greylock.