SOUTH DEERFIELD — The eighth-seeded Frontier Regional boys basketball team held off No. 9 Mahar, 43-39, in the Western Massachusetts Division 3 Tournament first round, Tuesday at Frontier Regional.
Trailing by eight, Mahar’s press defense forced five consecutive turnovers as the Senators cut the score to 41-39 with 18 seconds left.
The last turnover was a steal on an inbound pass on the Red Hawks’ baseline that gave Quinn Gervais an opportunity to tie the game, but his layup from under the basket was off the mark. The Senators were forced to intentionally foul Kalen Evans, who miss the first shot of the one-and-one.
Mahar got one more opportunity after the miss, but with the clock winding down, center Carsten Carey blocked Mahar’s 3-point attempt. Frontier then kept possession until the clock ran out.
“We obviously have some work to do,” Frontier coach Ben Barshefsky. “We need to be stronger with the basketball and embrace the pressure.”
Mahar led 14-10 after the first quarter, but a fire alarm went off just as the second quarter was supposed to start. It forced everyone to evacuate the building. The game did not resume for about 25 minutes.
When it did, Frontier did not score for the first four minutes of the second as Mahar built an 18-10 lead.
Freshman Owen Morse broke the scoring drought with a 3-pointer that started a Frontier comeback effort. Morse had seven points in the second and went 2-for-3 from beyond the arc. As the halftime buzzer sounded, Morse assisted on a 3-pointer to Evans, who gave Frontier a 22-20 lead. Morse scored or assisted on 10 of Frontier’s 11 points in the quarter.
Morse finished with 14 points on 4-for-7 shooting. After the game Morse was asked if he saw himself as the premier 3-point shooter on the team.
“I’m not going to lie: yes,” Morse said.
Carey led all scorers in the game with 16 points and eight rebounds. Carey said the team mostly listened to music during the fire alarm and equated the event to the power outage in the second half of Super Bowl XLVII.
Frontier (14-7) will next face No. 1 Monument Mountain (17-3) in Great Barrington, Friday at 7 p.m. Barshefsky said the Spartans have strong interior play and Carey said he was up to the challenge.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Carey said. “We don’t face that many post-heavy teams and usually I have a lot of guards playing defense on me so it will be good to have some big-to-big post action.”
Frontier 43, Mahar 39
Mahar (13-8)
Mailloux 3-0-6, Paul 3-2-8, Gervais 2-2-6, Jenks 4-4-12, Patch 1-0-2, Lyesiuk 2-0-5. Totals 15-8-39.
Frontier (14-7)
Sharp 2-0-5, Evans 1-2-5, Litskoski 1-1-3, Morse 4-3-14, C. Carey 6-4-16. Totals: 14-10-43.
|
Mahar |
14 |
6 |
9 |
10 |
—39 |
|
Frontier |
10 |
12 |
14 |
7 |
—43 |
3-Pointers—Mahar 1 (Lyesiuk) Frontier 5 (Morse 3, Evans, Sharp)