HADLEY – Andrew Ciaglo put the gas pedal down.
Hopkins Academy’s senior guard scored eight straight points midway through the first quarter to break a tie against Hampshire Regional and give the Golden Hawks the lead for good. They beat the Raiders 65-43 on Wednesday in Hadley.
After Hampshire’s Liam Pond tied the game at 8 with a 3-pointer, Ciaglo made a pull up jumper with 3 minutes, 56 seconds left in the quarter for a two-point lead. He then followed it with another jumper on the next possession. Ciaglo converted back-to-back fast break layups off of steals that made it 16-8 Hopkins with 1:38 on the clock.
“We all feel the momentum, and once we get a little taste of blood, we love it,” Ciaglo said. “We like to run with momentum, and that’s what we did.”
Ciaglo finished with a career-high 33 points. The 1,000-point scorer’s previous high was 32, which he hit twice before. It was his seventh career 30-point game. He also added nine steals, six assists and five rebounds.
“I’ve loved watching him play. Every game is a new game with him, whether he’s on or off,” Hopkins senior Colin Earle said. “Even when he’s off, he’s taking it to the hoop. He controls the ball all the time for us. He just knows how to handle it, he knows how to get us shots and it works.”
Earle (eight points) and Ciaglo – cousins – have played for the Golden Hawks for four years on varsity and displayed that connection midway through the second quarter.
Hampshire (4-2) turned the ball over after stepping across the line into play inbounding the ball. Hopkins took advantage of the chaos with a lob pass from Ciaglo to Earle that he calmly laid it in.
“It’s a set play that we do. We try not to pull it out too much and keep it a secret so they don’t see it coming, but it works a lot of the time,” Ciaglo said. “(Earle) knows the perfect time to cut around, and I know right when he’s going to cut. It’s really on point.”
The Golden Hawks (6-2) led by 16 at halftime, but the Raiders responded in the third quarter and pulled within nine at 46-37.
“We had a bunch of young guys out there and they’re not used to handling the ball, especially against that kind of pressure,” Hampshire coach Lee Mollison said. “I’m super proud of the way they fought, raced to the finish.”
Hopkins reached the finish line in front, but playing in the game provided experience the young Raiders can lean on as the season progresses. Sophomore Dylan Rohan led the way with 18 points and hit two 3s. Adam Golasinski (sophomore), Ben Pierce (sophomore) and Tyler Vanasse (seni0r) added six points each.
“The silver lining is all those underclassmen are getting all these really intense, valuable minutes,” Mollison said. “Huge crowd here tonight, it was an intense atmosphere. This is a great gym to play in. I wanted our kids to have this experience. Those young guys are going to be more ready to go down the line.”
Kyle Grabowski can be reached at kgrabowski@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @kylegrbwsk.