SOUTH HADLEY — The South Hadley High School gymnasium was a very intimidating place for an opposing team to play on Thursday night. Tigers starters were introduced to The Alan Parsons Project’s “Sirius” — the same song used to introduce the Michael Jordan-era Chicago Bulls. The student section was filled to the brim, where those that occupied it did not hold back after the visiting team’s violations, air balls, and during their foul shots.
Despite the menacing environment, visiting No. 17-seeded Amesbury thrived from the start, got better as the game progressed, and sealed a 65-43 victory by game’s end to punch a ticket to the MIAA Division 4 boys basketball Round of 16.
“They spread the floor. They utilized their pieces very well,” said South Hadley head coach Chris Gerber. “They executed a little better than us tonight.”
The game started with Amesbury’s Matt Welch and South Hadley’s Colin Quinn trading buckets, as they each scored two field goals to tie the game at four.
For the rest of the first quarter, it was a scoring battle between Amesbury’s Cam Keliher and Rocco Kokinacis and the Tigers’ Colin Quinn and Eddie Wykowski. Keliher scored seven points on a duo of two-pointers and one three-pointer, meanwhile Kokinacis scored five points on one two and a 3.
Quinn added a triple for No. 16 South Hadley while Wykowski provided strong low post offense with a pair of buckets under the hoop. The visitors held a 16-11 lead heading into the second quarter.
It was more of the same from Amesbury in the next frame, with Keliher dominating offensively. He added eight more points in the quarter, which made it 15 total for the half, with Welch providing five in the quarter. The visitors were up 31-23 at halftime.
Amesbury truly put the game to rest coming out of halftime. They went on a devastating 21-6 run to give themselves a 23-point lead with the third quarter almost finished. Gerber did everything he could from a game plan perspective to attempt to salvage the Tigers’ season.
“When you get down 16 or 17 (points), you have to make the game a little longer,” said Gerber. “They forced us to play a way we didn’t really want to play in the last 10 minutes.”
The South Hadley crowd remained in an optimistic spirit throughout the game. As the final minutes winded down and Amesbury’s offense slowed its pace, chants of “Thank you seniors!” rang from the student section.
The environment created in the South Hadley High School gym is something Tigers underclassmen have to look forward to in the coming years, and something the departing seniors, who just played their last high school game, will reflect positively on.