AMHERST — For the first 26 minutes of Tuesday night’s Western Massachusetts Division 3 boys basketball semifinal, Frontier Regional did exactly what it was looking to do.
The final six minutes, however, were a different story.
Third-seeded Narragansett Regional outscored the Red Hawks, 19-11, over the final six minutes and pulled out a 60-55 victory over the second-seeded Red Hawks at UMass’ Curry Hicks Cage.
Narragansett (21-3) heads to its first WMass championship game Saturday, when it will face No. 1 Sabis (18-4) at 4 p.m.
Much of the semifinal played into the hands of the Red Hawks (18-4), who wanted to take a methodical approach and keep the fast-paced Warriors from getting out and running. That would allow Frontier to play a zone defense that featured brothers Carsten and Peter Carey, who both stand 6-foot-8. While the Hawks were successful in preventing the Warriors from getting out and running, Narragansett knocked down nine 3-pointers to counteract the Frontier zone.
Frontier still took a 42-41 lead into the fourth quarter, and a steal and layup by Kalen Evans with 7 minutes, 11 seconds left put the Hawks up three. A free throw by Narragansett’s Noah Welch and then a field goal by the senior tied the score. There were six lead changes over the ensuing three minutes, but a 3-pointer by Narragansett’s Tyler Dill put the Warriors up 52-50 and gave them the lead for good.
Mistakes were the main culprit for Frontier down the stretch.
“Turnovers obviously hurt us,” Frontier coach Ben Barshefsky said. “We started to become a little bit complacent with our cuts to the ball and our passes.”
Frontier trailed 55-53 after Carsten Carey hit 1 of 2 free throws with 2:13 remaining, but back-to-back hoops by Myles Jacques and Damian Comeau stretched the lead to six points with under a minute to play. The dagger came when senior Carsten Carey was whistled for a fifth foul after collecting a defensive rebound and hit a Warrior player with an elbow.
It was the end of a frustrating night for Carey, who scored the first six points of the game for Frontier en route to 10 points at halftime. He got into foul trouble a bit in the second half and had to go to the bench for an extended period with four fouls in the fourth quarter. Carey finished the game with 17 points, 15 rebounds and one block. He was 5 of 6 from the free-throw line.
“Carsten was fouled all night long,” Barshefsky said. “Hand it to ’Gansett, they played a physical style and had a strong presence inside, but Carsten should have been at the charity stripe more than three times.”
Narragansett coach Rich Zalneraitis said he felt his team did a good job against the Frontier bigs.
“We knew we have two really good bigs that defend,” Zalneraitis said. “We said pick and choose your spots, you can front Carsten sometimes, play behind him, whatever you’re comfortable with.”
Narragansett center Ben Edwards surprised the Red Hawks. Edwards scored all of Narragansett’s 11 points in the first quarter, and hit his fourth 3-pointer of the game to start the second, accounting for the Warriors’ first 14 points.
“We weren’t counting on him hitting four 3s,” Barshefsky said.
The Warriors led 11-10 after the first quarter, and held a 27-25 lead at halftime. Frontier opened the third on a 6-2 run, and had a 9-0 run over a three-minute span that helped it take its biggest lead of the night, 40-32, with 2:04 to play in the frame. Narragansett responded with a 9-2 run to enter the fourth down 42-41.
Evans had 17 points to tie Carsten Carey for the team lead. Peter Carey finished with 12 points and eight boards, and Owen Morse chipped in seven points.
The game was the final one for five Frontier seniors — Evans, Carsten Carey, Alex Sharp, Tim Barrington and Zach Nuerminger.
“The toughest part of this is saying goodbye to our five seniors, who I’ve known since they were in kindergarten and are outstanding young men,” Barshefsky said.
Narragansett 60, Frontier 55
Narragansett (60)
Dill 7-0-18, Edwards 6-0-16, Monette-Harris 3-3-10, Welch 3-2-8, Comeau 1-2-4, Jacques 2-0-4. Totals 22-7-60.
Frontier (55)
Evans 8-1-17, C. Carey 6-5-17, P. Carey 5-2-12, Morse 3-0-7, Jones-Thompson 1-0-2, Barrington 0-0-0, Gochinski 0-0-0, Walkowicz 0-0-0, Nuerminger 0-0-0. Totals: 23-8-55.
|
Narragansett |
11 |
16 |
14 |
19 |
—60 |
|
Frontier |
10 |
15 |
17 |
13 |
—55 |
3-Pointers—Narragansett 9 (Monette-Harris, Dill 4, Edwards 4) Frontier 1 (Morse)