Pittsfield Pulls Away Late Against Springfield International Charter

PITTSFIELD, Mass. – Brawn Thompson posted a double-double, and the Pittsfield boys basketball team Wednesday bounced back from a frustrating loss to take a 76-63 win over Springfield International Charter.

 

Thompson scored 24 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and passed out six assists for the Generals, who pulled away in the fourth quarter after the Bulldogs made it a five-point game midway through the period.

 

Pittsfield (3-1) had not played in eight days after taking a 67-60 setback against Wahconah back on Dec. 22.

 

“We needed it big,” Pittsfield coach Jerome Edgerton said of the New Year’s Eve matinee. “It’s about kind of getting that taste out of our mouth that sat in our mouth for about a week or so.

 

“We just had to switch a little philosophy after that Wahconah game. I didn’t like, frankly, how we played the game. So we just got back to the basics. Really starting to coach up offense a little bit more.”

 

The Generals matched their season-high for points in the young season as Quincy Abellie scored 21 points and Noah Smalls and Braiden Sullivan added nine apiece.

 

The game went back and forth in the first half, when the teams traded leads five times and neither team led by more than four points.

 

Thompson set up Abellie for a conventional three-point play with .5 seconds left in the half to give the Generals a 30-27 lead in the locker room.

 

In the second half, Pittsfield withstood a pair of SICS runs before taking command in the closing minutes.

 

Early in the third quarter, the Generals took the game’s biggest lead on a Thompson bucket in transition to make it 35-29.

 

But the Bulldogs struck right back, getting a two-shot foul on a drive to the basket by Jaylen Mciver (25 points) that led to a technical foul. Iver made all four free throws. Then on the ensuing possession, he got to the line again, making a pair for six points in six seconds. He then hit a runner in the lane on the Dogs’ next possession to give his team a 37-35 lead.

 

It was a three-point deficit for Pittsfield before the Generals went on a 10-3 run that started with a pair of foul shots from Thompson (11-for-14 at the line) and ended with Thompson setting up Samseedy Touray to make it 45-41.

 

Pittsfield led by eight points through three quarters and took the game’s first double-digit lead when Sullivan set up Cassius Stein for an and-one that made it 54-43 with 6 minutes, 10 seconds on the clock.

 

Once again, SICS came back, scoring the next six points to get within five with 4:20 left to play.

 

Sullivan ended that run with a 3-pointer from well beyond the arc.

 

It was one of just three 3-pointers in the game for Pittsfield, which went on to add another with just more than two minutes left.

 

“At that point in time in the game, I told the boys in the huddle that we could start launching a little bit now because, I thought, we gained some momentum and the game was flowing,” Edgerton said. “I just don’t like those 3s that we take early on or when there’s no momentum, no flow.

 

“And we were doing a nice job with our concept. I’m not going to say what that concept is, but we were doing a nice job with that concept.”

 

A big key was Thompson, who excelled both as a scorer and a passer throughout.

 

“He was averaging about 20 or so [points] throughout the year, and he probably got there today, but I really wanted to make sure that we rely on his playmaking,” Edgerton said. “So that’s what we really talked about, him getting downhill. When he gets downhill, the defense will collapse, and then him reading the court and making those decisions out of it.

 

“You learn from that game the other night [against Wahconah]. As a coach, you just take it in. Quincy [Abellie] scored no points in the second half. That’s unacceptable. So you see us playing through him, using our guards a little bit more. Leaving the 3-point line alone. Shooting them when we can, and we’ll be fine going down the stretch.”

 

Yanis Anwonzo hit a 3 with 2:08 on the clock to push the lead back to double digits at 65-55, and Pittsfield maintained that margin down the stretch as Sullivan, Thompson and Smalls combined to shoot 7-for-8 from the line in the final minute.

 

Pittsfield is back in action on Friday night when it goes on the road to face Agawam.