Hurricanes Squeak Out Win for WMass Final; Blue Devils Fall by the Way
 Photos by Paul Guillotte
The Hurricanes are 20-3 going into the final Division II game against Sabis. More Hoosac photos here. |
The second-seeded Hurricanes lived up to their end of the bargain, squeaking out an ever-so-close 52-51 win over third-seeded Mahar in the sectional semifinals held at the Curry Hicks Cage in Amherst. The fifth-seeded Blue Devils couldn’t live up to their end of the bargain, however, as they fell to top-seeded Sabis 56-41 in the final game of the night.
Hoosac (19-3) and Mahar (18-4) opened up the action and put on a show similar to the 'Canes buzzer-beating win over the Senators in last year's quarterfinal round. Hoosac senior Robbie Burke was on fire early on in the game, scoring 10 out his team's 12 points in the first quarter and 18 of their 23 in the first half. Three players racked up six points each to lead Mahar's balanced scoring attack, and the Senators rallied from a five-point second quarter deficit to go into halftime down 23-22.
The Senators did a much better job keeping tabs on Burke in the second half, holding him to 11 points and forcing him to take much tougher shots. Despite that, Burke still connected for five straight points midway through the fourth quarter, the last two of which came off of a tip-in that gave the Hurricanes an eight-point lead with five minutes left to go in the game.
"I thought we could of put them away earlier, but we just didn't get the job done," Hoosac head coach Bill Robinson said. "We let them hang around, and Jobst hit a big three. We kind of went brain dead at times out there a little bit and you're not going to get away with that on Saturday, but we persevered in the end. When it counted the last two possessions, our defense tied them up and we got a steal."
Mahar forward Dane Jobst (20 points, 11 rebounds), who struggled from the outside the entire game, suddenly caught fire, however, and drained a pair of 3-pointers from the right wing to tie the game at 48 apiece and cap off a 10-2 Senators’ run. Jobst would later hit a running bank shot to give Mahar its first lead of the game a minute later, putting a giant scare into the defending Western Mass. champs in the process.Things looked pretty bleak for Hoosac when they turned the ball over on its next possession, but Burke intercepted a cross-court pass with 20 seconds left and was fouled on his way back up the court. With his team already in the extra bonus, Robinson opted to go for the steal instead of risking giving Mahar two shots out of the foul line. It's a move that ended up paying off, as the Senators got a little careless with the ball.
"I think we were about to go and foul them," Burke said. "Right when we came, I think he should have just tucked the ball and we would have probably fouled him. He ended up throwing it. I was just in the right place at the right time, and I think I ended up reading it pretty well."
Burke missed the front end of a one-and-one situation, but senior forward Zach Ziemba snuck in behind Jobst and scored on a putback to put his team ahead 52-51. Ziemba spent most of the first half on the bench in foul trouble but rallied back to score five points and grab six rebounds in the second half. A few seconds after his game-saving putback, Ziemba clinched the win by diving on the floor and forcing a jump ball.
The possession arrow and the win went to Hoosac Valley.
"We beat them at the buzzer last year, and they basically came back with the same exact team as last year," Ziemba said. "We knew what was coming, and they definitely gave us a battle. They gave us the game we were expecting, and we just got lucky at the end."
 The Blue Devils couldn't catch Sabis when the Bulldogs exploded in the second half. Find more Drury photos here. |
While the Hurricanes were slightly favored over Mahar, the Blue Devils were sizable underdogs to Sabis (20-2), a team that beat Hoosac by 19 points earlier this year. Drury head coach Jack Racette dialed up a solid game plan, however, and had his team prepared for the Bulldog's full-court press.
Junior forward Tyler Benoit slipped by the pressure a few times in the first quarter to score half of the Devils' 14 points in the frame. Sabis, aided by a 16-8 edge in rebounding in the first half, jumped out to a seven-point lead in the second quarter. Drury senior Nik Andrews scored six of his team's final eight points in the half, however, helping the Blue Devils cut the lead down to just three heading into the break.
"In the first half, we did everything we wanted to," Andrews said. "We played D like we wanted to. We were able to control [Andre] King. [Kamali] Bey got off on the boards a little bit, but overall we did a good job of containing those two players. We were able to control the tempo and things were looking in our favor I thought."
 Drury ended the season 16-6. |
"They are definitely a big team and physical," Andrews said. "We wanted to work the shot clock down to under 10 before looking for a shot. We just weren't able to get inside. Sometimes we had to settle for an outside shot, and that’s not what we wanted."
Overall, Drury only managed six points in the third quarter, giving the Bulldogs a comfortable 43-31 lead heading into the fourth. Andrews (15 points, three rebounds) did a great job holding King, normally a 20-point scorer, to just nine points on the night, but the Devils lacked someone with the size to match the Bulldog's other big gun. Bey, a bruising slasher who doesn’t have a typical body of a sophomore, bulled his way to 22 points and 11 boards, closing out the victory with a fast break dunk to signal the end of a another solid season for Drury (16-6).
"The bottom line is that we only scored six points in that third quarter," Racette said. "When you're in these kind of games, you can't score six points in a quarter. Once that lead got to 10, now we had to start changing our game plan a little bit. We didn't knock down shots when we had to, but the kids played hard and I thought we competed.
"But we're not down here for moral victories. We want to win. I thought we had an opportunity and, again, we let it get away in the third quarter."
Even though he left the Cage disappointed, Racette couldn't have been happier for a senior class that has made it down to Amherst three years in a row. For three-year varsity players, Andrews, Anthony Sims (10 points, two rebounds) and Justin Racette, the WMass. semifinals became their final destination every year they were a part of the team.
"Three straight years getting here is just a credit to them," Jack Racette said. "They've worked hard, we told our young guys that this is what it's about. That's the kind of athleticism that you're going to be playing against when you get to this tournament."
"But they had a great run. Nik Andrews I can't say enough about. King is a 20-point scorer and he holds him to less than 10. We just didn't have another stopper, and they have two weapons. When they only have one weapon, he's by far the best defender and I don't care what anyone tells me. He showed it tonight with King.""But we're not down here for moral victories. We want to win. I thought we had an opportunity and, again, we let it get away in the third quarter."
Saturday lineup at the Cage: St. Joe boys @ 12:30; HV boys@ 4; Lee girls @ 10:45 a.m; Monument girls @ 2:15. Links to full schedule here.
|
