AMHERST — For the first 26 minutes of Tuesday night’s Western Mass. Division 3 boys basketball semifinal, Frontier Regional School did exactly what it was looking to do.
The final six minutes, however, were a different story.
Third-seeded Narragansett Regional High School outscored the Red Hawks, 19-11, over the final six minutes and pulled out a 60-55 victory over the second-seeded Red Hawks at Curry Hicks Cage.
Narragansett (21-3) heads to its first-ever WMass championship game Saturday afternoon, where it will face top-seeded Sabis International Charter School.
Much of the game played into the hands of the Red Hawks (18-4), who wanted to take a methodical approach and keep the fast-paced Warriors from getting out and running. That would allow Frontier to play a zone defense that featured brothers Carsten Carey and Peter Carey, who both stand 6-foot-8 or better. While the Hawks were successful in preventing the Warriors from getting out and running, Narragansett managed to knock down nine 3-pointers on the night. That accounted for nearly half their points, and helped counteract the Frontier zone.
Frontier still took a 42-41 lead into the fourth quarter, and a steal and layup by Kalen Evans with 7 minutes, 11 seconds left put the Hawks up three. A free throw by Narragansett’s Noah Welch and then a field goal by the senior tied the score. The teams traded six lead changes over the ensuing three minutes, but a trey by Narragansett’s Tyler Dill put the Warriors up 52-50 and gave them the lead for good.
Careless turnovers were the main culprit for Frontier down the stretch, something that Frontier coach Ben Barshefsky pointed out.
“Turnovers obviously hurt us,” he began. “We started to become a little bit complacent with our cuts to the ball and our passes.”
Frontier kept things close and trailed just 55-53 after Carsten Carey hit 1-of-2 free throws with 2:13 remaining, but back to back hoops by Myles Jacques and Damian Comeau stretched the lead to six points with under a minute to play. The dagger came when Carsten Carey was whistled for a foul after collecting a defensive rebound and hit a Warrior player with an elbow, which was the fifth and final foul of the night for Frontier’s senior center, and was the final play of his high school career.
It was the end of a frustrating night for Carey, who looked dominant early on and scored the first six points of the game for Frontier en route to 10 points at halftime. He got into foul trouble a bit in the second half and had to go to the bench for an extended period with four fouls in the fourth quarter. Carey finished the game with 17 points, 15 rebounds and one block, although his coach felt he could have gone to the line more than just the three times he did where he made 5-of-6 shots.
“Carsten was fouled all night long,” Barshefsky said. “Hand it to ’Gansett, they played a physical style and had a strong presence inside, but Carsten should have been at the charity stripe more than three times.”
Narragansett coach Rich Zalneraitis said he felt his team did a good job against the Frontier bigs.
“We knew we have two really good bigs that defend,” he began. “We said pick and choose your spots, you can front Carsten sometimes, play behind him, whatever you’re comfortable with.”
Another surprise from Narragansett was the outside shooting of center Ben Edwards, who lit things up early. Edwards scored all of Narragansett’s 11 points in the first quarter, and hit his fourth 3-pointer of the game to start the second, accounting for the Warriors’ first 14 points.
“We weren’t counting on him hitting four 3s,” Barshefsky said.
The Warriors led 11-10 after the first quarter, and held a 27-25 lead at halftime. The third quarter was the best of the night for Frontier, which opened the frame on a 6-2 run, and had a 9-0 run over a three-minute span that helped it take its biggest lead of the night, 40-32, with 2:04 to play in the frame. Narragansett responded with a 9-2 run to end the period and go into the fourth down just 42-41.
Frontier finished the game with more made field goals (23-22) and more made free throws (8-7) but the Warriors held a 9-1 edge in 3-pointers made.
“We shoot the ball well,” Zalneraitis said. “We’ve struggled a little bit in the big environments like Clark University and here. We knew we just have runs in us. When the ball moves in and comes back out, we shoot the ball very well.”
Dill finished with 18 points to pace the Warriors, while Edwards wound up with 16, scoring just two more points the rest of the way after exploding for the first 14 of the game. Freddie Monette-Harris added 10 points in the win.
Evans had 17 points to tie Carsten Carey for the team lead. Peter Carey finished with 12 points and eight boards, and Owen Morse chipped in 7 points.
The game was the final one for five Frontier seniors — Evans, Carsten Carey, Alex Sharp, Tim Barrington and Zach Nuerminger.
“The toughest part of this is saying goodbye to our five seniors, who I’ve known since they were in kindergarten and are outstanding young men,” Barshefsky concluded.
Narragansett 60, Frontier 55
Narragansett (60)
Dill 7-0—18, Edwards 6-0—16, Monette-Harris 3-3—10, Welch 3-2—8, Comeau 1-2—4, Jacques 2-0—4. Totals 22-7—60.
Frontier (55)
Evans 8-1—17, C. Carey 6-5—17, P. Carey 5-2—12, Morse 3-0—7, Jones-Thompson 1-0—2, Barrington, Gochinski, Walkowicz, Nuerminger. Totals: 23-8—55.
3-Point Goals: (N) Monette-Harris, Dill 4, Edwards 4. (F) Morse.
Score by quarters:
|
Narragansett |
11 |
16 |
14 |
19 |
— |
60 |
|
Frontier |
10 |
15 |
17 |
13 |
— |
55 |