AMHERST — Hampshire Regional coach Lee Mollison wants his team to find ways to highlight talented individual players this season, but do it in the framework of the team’s offense.
Running an unselfish offense with a young group isn’t impossible, but it’s hard. This season, the Raiders have brought back most of last year’s boys basketball team, especially in the back court.
The Raiders’ 55-39 win over Easthampton at Curry Hicks Cage on Friday night was a good first step in the right direction toward what the team wants to be offensively.
“You can win more games with mature guards,” Mollison said. “I think that is finally starting to come up.”
Hampshire’s Justin Forest finished with a game-high 27 points to help lead the Raiders to victory. He also chipped in five rebounds and three assists.
“He can stretch the floor,” Mollison said. “He has increased his ball handling tremendously, but what makes him great is that he’s unselfish. He takes a lot of shots within the context of the offense, but he’s not a selfish player. … He’s all about it. He’s a winner and he wants to win. He works hard at it. He is always getting shots up.”
Hampshire jumped out to an early lead powered by 3-pointers from Spencer Czarneicki and Dylan Rohan. Colin Boyle played great individual defense on Eagles’ sharpshooter Owen Morse through all four quarters.
“That’s Colin’s specialty,” Mollison said. “He’s tough, fit and he takes more charges on or team than anybody. He’s our go-to defender.”
The Raiders came out on the front foot, but toward the end of the quarter, both teams hit a slump and missed open shots. The Eagles’ Mateo Navarro eventually hit a corner 3-pointer to cut the deficit to 15-9 and break the dry spell.
Easthampton fell into a groove, but Forest scored in the paint and along the outside to keep the Eagles at bay for much of the first half.
A 3-pointer from the Eagles’ Tommy Vaillancourt and fewer turnovers to start the second quarter helped close the gap to 20-12 halfway through the second period, but two 3-pointers from the Raiders’ Ian Dunlap (12 points) and free throws from Forest gave Hampshire a 10-point lead going into halftime.
“We didn’t execute on offense much,” Easthampton coach Jason Moynihan said. “I think we got sped up and a bit hectic and reverted back to bad habits.”
The Eagles had trouble at times creating offense from the paint due to great interior defense from Jamil Rodriguez (eight points). The eighth grader affected shots down low with his length and athleticism.
“He’s very impressive,” Mollison said. “We knew his athleticism would make him a difference-maker. … We have been working on some other things with him like body language, things like that, but he’s picked up the offense well. He’s smart. He has a knack for where he should be on the court. Still a lot to work on, but the athleticism is fantastic.”
The Raiders continued to dictate the tempo moving into the second half. The team caught Easthampton getting back on defense and took advantage with layups at the other end.
“We talked about punching them in the mouth early and trying to get it over as soon as possible and hold onto that lead for the rest of the game,” Forest said.
A 3 from Forest midway through the third period made it 43-23, Raiders. The Eagles outscored Hampshire 12-8 in the final quarter of play, but it wasn’t enough.
Moving forward, Moynihan hopes to build off of the performance he got from a couple of his young players.
“I had a couple of young guys in (Carter) Daughdrill, Navarro and Tommy Vaillancourt give me everything they had on top of really making an effort to do the things we asked them to do,” Moynihan said. “They made a big difference in the game. It could have slipped away and gotten to 30. Those three kids, a freshman and two sophomores, never stopped working or executing. That is a really good sign.”
The Raiders feel that, if the team round into shape through the next few weeks, they have a potent offensive attack.
“I think offensively there aren’t a lot of teams that can stop us,” Forest said. “We have four or five really good shooters on the outside.”