GRANBY — Any time the Easthampton boys basketball team put together a strong stretch of play on Tuesday night, Granby always seemed to have an answer. The Rams were aggressive, precise and relentless for all 32 minutes of their contest with the Eagles, and a 38-point second half propelled them to a 68-44 win on their home floor.

Easthampton (4-11) didn’t score consecutive baskets once throughout the entire game, as Granby’s (10-3) swarming press defense overwhelmed the Eagles – especially in the third quarter – to create separation in the second half.

Rams head coach Dylan Dubuc had three goals for his team coming into the night. If they could complete all three, he liked their chances of walking out with a victory.

They did so to perfection.

“Easthampton is a good team,” Dubuc said. “I know their record doesn’t show it, but they’ve got five guys that can score and shoot and attack, so the game plan going is was transition defense, contain and contest, and rebound. We checked all three of those boxes, and that allows you to stay in the game. Offensively, in the third quarter, we found our legs a little bit and finished around the hoop, which got us a little bit of separation.”

NeNe Fernandez led the way with a game-high 21 points for Granby, Riley Goodhind scored 18 and Sawyer Clarke added eight points. Dubuc has a deep bench, and often throws nine or 10 players into his rotation in games. That luxury allows him to call his full-court press like he did for portions of the night, because if his players get tired, he has plenty of options to plug in from the bench.

It also makes Granby difficult to defend, because with nine seniors on the team, several of them who are legitimate scoring options, the Rams can call upon anyone to knock down shots.

“That’s been our identity, trying to pick our spots when to throw that press out there,” Dubuc said. “Our depth is good this year. We play eight guys regularly and some nights it’s nine or 10 depending on matchups. We’ve got fresh legs, and we have experience with nine seniors and some guys that have been around and understand what we’re trying to do.”

Fernandez opened the night with a first-quarter flurry, scoring 11 of his 21 in the opening eight minutes. Granby used his hot shooting to build a 16-7 lead after one.

But Easthampton didn’t allow the Rams’ quick start to rattle it. Jasper Alvarez and Patrick Larson controlled the tempo of the second quarter to keep the Eagles within striking distance at halftime, as the visitors went into the locker room trailing 30-20.

“When we went down early, after Fernandez hit all those shots, we didn’t buckle,” Easthampton head coach Nick Whitney said. “They kept moving the ball, and we didn’t allow their lead to inflate. We stuck together in the first half.”

A 9-3 run began the third quarter for Granby, with Goodhind and Fernandez exchanging wide-open layups to prompt Whitney to call timeout. And although Easthampton responded by scoring on its next two possessions, Granby matched it with buckets of its own. Rams guard Cody Breault then splashed consecutive 3s, followed by a Goodhind 3 to highlight an 11-2 spurt to end the frame.

All of a sudden Granby was ahead 52-30 entering the final frame.

Once again, Easthampton strung together several positive offensive possessions, they couldn’t get stops on the defensive end. Brayden English and Chase Canon-Smith buried back-to-back 3s, but a Fernandez and-1 happened in between and a Zavien Fernandez long ball came directly after.

After a 7-0 Granby run made it 62-39 midway through the quarter, Whitney burned another timeout, and gave a passionate message to his team. Easthampton outscored Granby 8-6 the rest of the way.

“We talked about how we want to end the season,” Whitney said. “We talked about being there for each other, being committed and why we’re here. We’re all here because we love basketball. That last four minutes is something that needs to be replicated. We all have to hold ourselves accountable, because when we do it, it looks really good. But when we don’t do it, it looks stagnant. We have to figure out why. It’s a collective effort by all of his.”

Alvarez scored a team-high 20 points for the Eagles, English tossed in 11 points and Larson scored eight to pace Easthampton offensively.

The Eagles return to action on Friday when they host Belchertown at 7 p.m.

As for Granby, its previous game – a 12-point loss at Ware – served as a wake-up call. Dubuc knew his team didn’t bring its best stuff in that contest, physically or mentally. So he sat his guys down and simply told them to flush it. With the Western Massachusetts tournament fast approaching, he wants the Rams to be peaking right about now.

Tuesday was a good start, and next week they’re really going to find out just how prepared they are when they take on a gauntlet of opponents.

“We’re really close to figuring it out,” Dubuc said. “We had a get together talk with the group and said, ‘Now is the time.’ Next week we host Hoosac [Valley], go to Monument [Mountain] and then play South Hadley. We gave ourselves a bit of a challenge, purposely, to have a little tournament before the tournament to see what we’re made of. Now is the time you want to start executing and peaking to build some momentum for playoffs.”

But before then, Granby has to travel to Monson on Friday night at 7 p.m.