AMHERST — One step forward, two steps back.
Every time Turners Falls High School successfully put together a strong sequence of plays Tuesday night, Hopkins Academy had a response … and then some.
The top-seeded and two-time defending western Massachusetts champion Hawks controlled the glass and pressured the Powertown into countless turnovers with their aggressive full-court pressure. With star senior Sam’i Roe running the show to the tune of 32 points, Hopkins made more than enough plays to capture a 73-60 victory in a WMass Division IV Boys’ Basketball Tournament semifinal contest at the Curry Hicks Cage on the campus of UMass.
“I think it was just the mental mistakes that we had,” offered senior point guard Tionne Brown of Turners’ issues against Hopkins. “Not catching passes, making some bad passes that we know we could make. Bad rebounding in the first half and just missed layups. Simple stuff we know we can do. It’s just tough to hold those things in.”
The trip to the Cage was the second in three years for No. 4 Turners (14-9). The Powertown dropped a 68-46 loss to the same Hopkins team in 2015. It was Turners’ third loss of the season to the Hawks, who improved to 20-2 with the victory and will play the winner of tonight’s other semifinal game between No. 2 Granby High School (14-8) and No. 3 Monson High School (12-10). The championship game is scheduled to be played back at the Cage on Saturday at 12:30 p.m.
“It was great,” Brown said of returning to the Cage after he played in the building as a sophomore two years ago. “Coming here sophomore year, it was a great feeling and a good atmosphere. I always wanted to make it back, especially senior year. We had a great season. We shocked a lot of people and people didn’t think we were going to be as good as we were. We came out, we played hard and I think we deserved to make it here.”
With Roe and John Earle (15 points) carrying the offense in the second half, Hopkins was able to keep Turners in a double-digit hole throughout. Despite a late flurry in the third quarter that saw Nick Croteau nail an old-fashioned three-point play along with buckets from Anthony Peterson and Nick Bergmann to cut the lead to 52-39, the Hawks never allowed the Powertown back inside single digits.
Turners got as close as 56-45 after a Brown free throw with 6:52 left in the fourth. But the constant energy exerted when playing from a sizable hole all night caught up to the blue and white down the stretch. The Hawks took off on a 13-4 run in response, with Roe going coast-to-coast in guiding his team to a 69-49 lead that more than put things out of reach.
Turners got contributions offensively from its entire roster. Brown scored a team-high 12 points, while Bergmann joined him in double figures with 10. Peterson added 9 points, while Jimmy Vaughn and Jeremy Wolfram had very strong outings off the bench with 8 points apiece. Croteau tossed in 6 points in defeat.
Hopkins stormed out to an 8-2 lead after Turners opened the game with a Bergmann basket. The blue and white stemmed the tide early, pulling back within 12-8 thanks to hoops from Brown and Peterson.
But the Hawks made their living on the offensive glass, setting the tone for the evening. With Jon Morrison (13 points) doing some of the dirty work inside, the top-seeded team’s athleticism was on full display through the first frame. Roe and Earle didn’t always make their first shots, but second and third chances eventually went down for the defending champs, and they created some late separation to take an 18-12 lead after one quarter.
Wolfram, a senior, cut the deficit to 18-14 with a turnaround jumper to open the second quarter. He scored a team-high 8 points in the first half, giving Turners an offensive spark it badly needed early, though Hopkins had more than enough firepower to stay ahead.
The Hawks responded to Wolfram’s hoop with a 14-3 run, the only Turners blemish being a 3-pointer by Vaughn. The spree, which put Hopkins up 32-17 with 2:35 remaining, was largely a one-man press-breaking clinic by Roe, who carved his way through Turners defenders while getting to the basket either for layups or dishes to open teammates in the paint.
“It’s awesome,” said Brown of playing against Roe. “You want to play against the biggest and the best kids and he’s clearly the best kid in the area. He has the most talent since who knows when. It’s just good to be out on the court, but you’re always trying to make plays against him. If you make one good play, that’s the stuff you remember: I made a play against one of the best kids.”
Wolfram and Bergmann scored to keep the blue and white within shouting distance, but Roe’s steal and basket just before the halftime buzzer gave Hopkins the majority of the momentum at intermission, up 37-23.
The third game of a tripleheader at the Cage, Tuesday’s contest didn’t tip off until 8:45 from an originally scheduled 8 p.m. slot after the first two games of the evening went to overtime