Hoosac Boys Come Back to Earn Spot in State Championship Game
WORCESTER, Mass. -- With 10 seconds left and his team ahead by one point in Wednesday's Division 5 State Semi-Final, Qwanell Bradley stepped to the free throw line and did what he has done throughout his Hurricanes career.
He delivered.
Bradley sank both foul shots to put Hoosac Valley ahead, 55-52, in an eventual 56-52 come-from-behind win over Roxbury Prep at North High School.
The eighth-seeded Hurricanes will face No. 6 Holbrook, a winner in the other side of the draw on Wednesday night against No. 7 Prospect Hill in the MIAA tournament's Cinderella Division.
That final will be played this weekend on a date and a time to be announced at UMass-Lowell's Tsongas Center.
Adan Wicks scored 26 points, and Bradley had a double-double with 16 points and 14 rebounds as the Hurricanes won their eighth game in a row and improved to 17-8.
Roxbury Prep led, 47-31, midway through the third quarter, but the Hurricanes outscored the Wolves, 25-5, the rest of the way.
Still, Roxbury Prep got a lift when Sergio Ruano hit a 3-pointer out of a timeout with 50 seconds left to get his team within a point at 53-52.
But the Wolves had a couple of fouls to give and could not get Hoosac Valley to the strip until 10.5 seconds remained in regulation.
Bradley knocked down both his free throws to push the lead back to three points.
"Yeah, probably," he said with a wide smile when asked if they were the most pressure-packed free throws he has faced in his career. "But it's something that you dream about. It's something that ... you prepare yourself for these moments.
"As a senior, my team is counting on me. We just punched our ticket back to Lowell, baby. Let's go!"
The Hurricanes last played in the state final in 2024. Bradley and Wicks, who each scored his 1,000th point this season, scored 13 and 8, respectively, in a 57-49 loss to New Mission.
That year, Hoosac Valley was the No. 1 seed in the state playoffs and posted four double-digit wins on the road to Lowell.
This year, the Hurricanes have advanced with two dramatic wins in the quarter-finals: at Drury on Saturday and Wednesday night.
The first win factored heavily into the second.
"That gave us all the confidence in the world," Hoosac Valley coach Matt Larabee said of the win over the rival Blue Devils. "Number one team in the state, and we beat them. That kind of makes us the number one team in the state, right?
"We come in here, and I just told them, 'Guys, there are four teams left, and we're just as good, if not better, than all of them. So let's go out there and have fun. Play our game. We played our game. Fifty-six points is our game, right?"
The Hurricanes have held ever opponent except Drury in the 40s or 50s during their eight-game winning streak, which included a Western Massachusetts Class D Championship win.
On Wednesday in the state Final Four, the Wolves took control of the first half with a barrage of second-quarter 3-pointers.
Hoosac Valley used a 9-0 run that spanned the first and second quarters to take a 12-8 lead on Bradley's basket early in the third.
But Gil Martins (13 points) answered with a 3 for Roxbury, which got five more triples in the quarter -- three from Martins -- to lead by as many as 10 points.
That was the margin when Zidane Nogueira hit from behind the arc to make it 31-21 with 30 seconds left in the half.
Bradley put back an offensive rebound for the Hurricanes to get them within eight points at half-time.
Roxbury Prep made four more 3-pointers in the first four minutes of the third quarter, pushing its lead to 47-31 on a triple from Anas Abdi (16 points).
But Wicks came right back with a 3 for Hoosac, and the Hurricanes scored the next nine points, drawing within four at 47-43 with a Wicks basket for the first points of the fourth quarter.
Then, the Hurricanes scored 10 in a row.
Wicks drove the lane and then scored in the post with an assist from Bradley to make it a two-point game. Then Bradley tied it with a basket from the foul line on a possession that was extended by Carson Durant's offensive rebound.
With just more than two minutes left, the Hurricanes got a big stop when Durant defended Martins on a drive to the basket and Terrell Johnson (seven points, 12 rebounds) grabbed the rebound.
The teams traded two more empty trips before Bradley got to the line with a chance to give his team the lead. He made his first and missed the second, but Durant got the rebound to extend the possession for the 'Canes.
Wicks' fourth 3-pointer of the game made it 53-49 with 1:35 left, setting the stage for Ruano's 3 to make it a 1-point game in the closing seconds.
It should have come as no surprise that the Hurricanes were able to dig their way out of a hole. It's what Hoosac Valley has been doing for the last two months since a mid-January loss to Wahconah dropped the Hurricanes to 4-6.
That loss capped a four-game losing streak, when, Larabee notes, no one had the Hurricanes pegged for a state title game contender.
"Who the heck thought we were going to be in the state championship game this year?" he said. "Nobody. Find someone before this season who said, 'Oh yeah, Hoosac's gonna be in the state finals.' Not a single party.
"You think I thought we were going to get this far? I wanted to win Western Mass and see what we could do for damage in the state tournament. We just keep doing it. It's been a great ride, but we're not done yet.
"We've got one more."
Photos from this game to come.