SPRINGFIELD — Shell-shocked.
That’s how Franklin County Technical School assistant coach Brian Llewelyn described his feeling just moments following Tuesday night’s Western Massachusetts Division IV Boys’ Basketball Tournament first-round game against Baystate Academy.
You’d be hard-pressed to find someone inside the South End Community Center that would’ve disagreed.
Jared Bergmann hit the go-ahead basket with just 20 seconds remaining, and visiting 11th-seeded Franklin Tech survived three missed field goals on the other end to snag an improbable 56-54 victory over the sixth-seeded Bulls in a wild, up and down boys’ basketball contest that took years off the lives of the raucous fans in attendance.
“I can’t say enough about these guys and what they were able to overcome tonight,” explained Llewelyn, who picked up a postseason victory stepping in for his brother, head coach Matt Llewelyn, who was out of town on his honeymoon. “They come to work every single day and put everything they’ve got into it. To come out here and get a win is awesome.”
Things didn’t look promising late. After leading for just about the entire game, the Eagles watched helplessly as sixth-seeded Baystate (14-7) took a 45-40 lead with 5:45 remaining in the fourth quarter.
Using just a six-man rotation, Franklin Tech was forced to reinsert big man Garrett Cole into the lineup. Cole, who was forced to the bench with four fouls late in the third, instantly provided a spark. With his defensive presence back on the floor, the Eagles got their second wind.
A 7-0 run followed, with a pair of hoops coming from Sim Maniatty, and back-to-back layups from Bergmann and Seth Aldrich gave the visitors a 53-49 advantage with 1:25 remaining.
“I debated when to put (Cole) back in the game but we had no choice with the score and situation and about six minutes left,” Llewelyn offered. “We threw him back in there and he did a fabulous job.”
The back-and-forth carousel ride wasn’t done however. Baystate answered with five straight points, including a go-ahead layup from a wide-open Jaheem Brown with 32 seconds to play on a blown coverage off an out-of-bounds play. That gave the hosts a 54-53 lead, forcing a Tech timeout.
The Eagles responded, and Bergmann broke free for a layup around a pair of Baystate defenders with 20 seconds to play for a 55-54 lead. The Bulls got three looks at the potential game-winning shot in the final seconds, but Bergmann pounced on the rebound after miss No. 3 and was fouled with 2.4 seconds left. He made one of two from the stripe, and a last-second, full-court heave was way short as Tech survived and advanced to the quarterfinals.
“I was just trying to stay calm and focused,” explained Bergmann, who scored a team-high 18 point, of the fanatic pace of the final seconds. “All year we’ve conditioned to be ready to outwork teams in the end. We were prepared.”
Just 12 days removed from an 18-point loss to Baystate on the same floor, the Eagles (11-10) looked like a very different team out of the gates. Bergmann got the offense rolling with a 3-pointer and the squad took off thanks to a compact defense that limited Baystate to just one shot on most offensive trips. That led to fast-break opportunities, and Tech consistently had open players up the floor ready for easy shots. The result was a 12-2 run to open the game, with the Bulls held scoreless for a nearly five-minute span.
Aldrich hit a pair of 3’s and scored 8 points in the opening stanza, as a late 7-0 run to close the first enabled the visitors to get off to just the kind of start they wanted up 21-7 after a period.
“I told the guys we needed to come out with as much energy as possible because (Baystate) is probably going to think they can just come out here and walk all over us,” Llewelyn said.
The Bulls seemed to figure things out in the second, as a plethora of Tech turnovers — some forced, some careless — led to a 9-3 run out of the gates to pull within 24-16.
The visitors were undaunted, however, and Aldrich scored a pair of tough layups in response. The Tech defense held the high-scoring Baystate offense off the board over the final 3:16 and carried a 29-16 advantage into intermission.
Not surprisingly, Baystate came to life in the second half. Tech, using a rotation of just six players against a team that operates with an uptempo, constantly-pressuring, ball-hawking mentality, was forced into a bit of a track meet. The Eagles held on until early in the fourth, when the Bulls took their first lead since it was 2-0 on a Tyreek Rankin bucket to make it 40-38.
But the Eagles’ conditioning and poise conquered all, and a steady diet of Bergmann and Aldrich (14 points) provided just enough offense to overcome the high-scoring Bulls. Maniatty tossed in 9 points in the win, while Cole added 7 points and Jared Vielmetti-Perusse scored 5.
Desmond Ortiz led all scorers with 20 points for Baystate, which struggled from the free-throw line and managed just four from the charity stripe on the night.
The win catapults the Eagles into Friday night’s WMass quarterfinal, set to be played on the road against No. 3 Pioneer Valley Regional School at Messer Gymnasium in Northfield. The two teams did not meet during the regular season.