Boys basketball: Late run propels Holyoke past Amherst, 58-52

HOLYOKE – In the final minute and change of the third quarter between the Amherst and Holyoke boys basketball teams Monday night, the Purple Knights found themselves trailing by eight points – their largest deficit of the night.

They needed a spark, and Aden Cabrera gave them just that. The sophomore guard buried a three-pointer on the wing to kickstart a 7-0 run to end the frame, bringing Holyoke within one point. The Purple Knights would ride that wave into the fourth quarter, extending that spurt to a 20-4 spree and an eight-point lead of their own with four minutes left in the game.

Holyoke hung on the rest of the way, defeating Amherst 58-52 at John “Jinx” O’Connor Gymnasium on Monday night.

“One thing we know is that we have guys that can play basketball,” Holyoke head coach Juan Maldonado said. “We knew that Amherst is a tough team. They’re well coached. But we wanted to get them tired, and we knew if we could do that, the fourth quarter would be ours. That’s exactly what we wanted to do, and the boys stuck to that game plan.”

That game plan was to overwhelm the Hurricanes with a relentless full-court press. Amherst had beaten the press without any real trouble through the first three quarters, but ran into a roadblock in the fourth. 

The difference between the final stretch of the game and quarters one, two, and three was that the Hurricanes were exhausted – and that’s exactly the point of pressing, even when it doesn’t seem like it’s working. Come the end of the game, fatigue wears on the opposition. Amherst turned the ball over six times in the fourth quarter alone.

“I saw carelessness from guys who are veteran guys, returners who – it’s not that they haven’t been in big games – I expect more from,” Hurricanes head coach Jamahl Jackson said. “This is a really good Holyoke team. We knew that. I thought we played a really good game, but in that little patch of time we had five consecutive turnovers.”

Amherst went into halftime up 26-21, but Holyoke seized the energy of the contest right before then when Jamil Rivera slammed home the first of two powerful two-handed jams on the night – the last points of the first half.

The Purple Knights re-grouped in the locker room, and Rivera’s dunk helped settle some of the nerves that playing in front of the home crowd for the first time can cause.

“I just told them to trust each other,” Maldonado said. “Nobody needs to score 20 for us to get the W, we can go out there and get it as a team. And I think we just had to get the jitters out the way. Our first home game, we had to get those jitters out. And they responded well in that second half.”

Coming out of the break, Holyoke out-scored Amherst 11-4 in the first three minutes to take a 32-30 lead. Hurricanes leading scorer Marcielo Aquino put the team on his back, calming them down with two deep threes in a row that touched nothing but nylon.

The ensuing play, Aquino hit Spencer Waite in transition for an and-one layup to cap off the 9-0 response and put the visitors back in front by seven before the aforementioned Purple Knights’ flurry.

Jackson has come to expect those types of plays from Aquino (17 points), who he had high praise for despite some fourth-quarter turnovers.

“He’s one of our captains, a returning player, and one of the best players in western Mass.,” Jackson said. “With that being said, what he did offensively is honestly an expectation. I expect him to play like that. The turnovers, he knows he should be better than that. He knows that. But without a doubt, if it wasn’t for some of the plays he made, particularly in that third quarter, we don’t have that lead [going into the fourth].”

Just as Maldonado urged to his team at halftime, the Purple Knights did it by committee. Davian Diaz netted 17 points and Dylan Rohan added 10 to pace an offense that saw eight different players record a point in the win. 

Between Diaz, Rohan, Cabrera, Luis Figueroa, and Shawn Rivera, Holyoke has a plethora of play-making guards that grease the wheels and get the offense going. Toss in Jamil Rivera and Chauncey Ruiz down low, and this Purple Knights team could be in for a special season.

“Quite honestly, this is probably one of the more skilled, talented teams, if not the most talented team I’ve ever coached,” Maldonado said. “It starts with our guards. They’re tough, and our big guys are tough as well.”

Holyoke (2-0) is off for the rest of the week, and the Knights return to action on Dec. 18 for a road bout with Pope Francis at 7 p.m.

Amherst (0-2) will gear up for the Battle of the Bridge, as the ‘Canes take on Northampton on Friday night at the Mullins Center for the Pioneer Valley Tip-Off. That game is scheduled to begin at 9 p.m.