HADLEY — All season long, the Hopkins Academy boys basketball team has been balancing on a very thin tightrope with its style of play.
Undersized but talented, the Golden Hawks play fast and hard to make up for their lack of size. When it works, it’s basketball at its best – passes connecting, back door plays, three-point daggers that bring the home crowd to its feet. But the problem with playing that fast is that sometimes, the speed catches up to you and can put you behind the eight-ball.
In Tuesday night’s MIAA Division 5 Round of 16 game against No. 10 Roxbury Prep, the Golden Hawks were on the wrong side of their double-edged sword. Missed layups came back to haunt No. 7 Hopkins as it fell, 59-55, ending its season in the process.
Teddy Cyr led the Hawks with 20 points, followed by James Fitzgibbons with 14 points and Cody West with 12.
“For our team to win, we have to have five or six guys all clicking on all cylinders,” Hopkins head coach Jim Hart said. “When we divert from that, when there’s a team (Roxbury) that we’re playing, or even if we went to next round, you can’t afford to miss easy layups, you’ve got to make your free throws, and you’ve got to be able to take care of the ball. I don’t think we did that.”
Everything was going Hopkins’ way in the first four minutes. Cyr opened the scoring and Fitzgibbons pounded away in the paint for six points, allowing Hopkins to build up a quick 10-2 lead.
But from there on out, it was a grind for the Hawks. Fitzgibbons picked up two quick fouls and rode the bench for the rest of the first half, and Roxbury’s offense found its footing after some early struggles. The Wolves went on a 13-0 run to end the first half and take a 15-10 lead going into the second. The visitors were led by Harold Matthews, who finished the first half with 16 points.
“(Our plan) was run the floor and taking it hard to the basket and I think we did that pretty well,” Cyr said. “(We were) struggling on working it in and sometimes we just bobbled passes and it got tipped and when it gets tipped, there’s nothing you can do with that.”
A clutch steal and layup by Cyr at the buzzer pulled the Golden Hawks within three points going into halftime, down 28-25.
Down by as many as eight points in the second quarter, Hopkins fought back at the beginning of the third, riding a pair of Cyr free throws and a triple from West to tie the game for the first time since the opening quarter. After trading baskets back and forth, another dagger from West gave Hopkins the lead back, and from there it was game on. By this point, the packed gym was electric, making it hard for coaches and players alike to hear anything in the thundering gymnasium.
“It was definitely intense,” Cyr said on playing at home during the postseason. “It’s nerve-racking, but once we get it going, we get it going, so it’s fun.”
By the end of the third quarter, Roxbury held onto a slim 41-40 lead, but the game could have been much different if Hopkins could have converted more of its free throws or layups. By the end of the game, the Golden Hawks had missed more than a dozen layups, some open, some contested, but they added up as the teams reached the home stretch.
With the home team down by six with just over two minutes to play, West came in clutch and hit back-to-back triples to tie the game. The momentum was all Hopkins – Roxbury turned the ball over twice, hurling a pass to the right corner before stepping out of bounds on both attempts. But despite the turnovers, Hopkins still couldn’t get a layup to go its way. The Wolves netted a bucket and a pair of free throws, and the Golden Hawks’ playoff run came to a bittersweet end.
“It’s a good experience. It’s sad to have it end like this at home, but good things come to an end,” Hart said. “I told our guys to be proud…but it’s a stinger. It really stings.”
Roxbury Prep advanced to play in the Div. 5 quarterfinals, where it will play either No. 2 David Prouty or No. 15 Pacific Rim.