TURNERS FALLS — The push for the postseason is in emergency mode for the Turners Falls boys basketball team.
The Thunder took care of business on Wednesday, cruising to a 61-34 victory over Mohawk Trail in an independent contest. Turners, which improved to 6-9 overall, now has five games remaining on its regular-season slate. The club needs to go 4-1 the rest of the way to punch a postseason ticket.
“Realistically, if we can get some wins in the next couple of games there’s still a chance at second place in our league,” Turners head coach Gary Mullins began. “Problem is, we just don’t have much in the way of consistency at this point. I can’t tell you what we’re going to look like tomorrow.”
Turners did take care of business two days removed from a tough one-point loss to Frontier, using an 18-0 run from the first quarter into the second against the Warriors to create some immediate separation. Marcus Sanders scored 11 of the 18 points in that run, using his speed to get into passing lanes defensively and taking off the other way for buckets in transition. It all added up to an early 23-5 lead that set the tone in the must-win game.
“Intensity on defense is the big thing for us,” offered Sanders, who finished the night with 18 points, four rebounds, four steals and four assists in a strong all-around effort. “If we get after people with intensity, we’re hard to play.”
Mohawk (1-12) finally got something going in the second quarter, when Matt Pollen grabbed a rebound and banked in a layup to stop the run. Three-pointers from Shawn Davenport and Tyler Dubreuil got the visitors back within 28-15, but Anthony Peterson ripped off five straight points for the Thunder and helped the hosts head into the locker room with a 33-17 halftime advantage.
“We need to get Ant going,” Mullins said of the team’s senior center. “He’s working hard on the defensive end but we haven’t gotten the ball inside enough. We don’t use him enough. But when we do, he and Chace (Novak) do some nice things together. We’re a different team when we do that.”
Peterson continued his spree by scoring the first four points of the third quarter, and Novak’s 3-pointer midway through the stanza had Turners ahead, 42-20. The margin never dropped below 20 points the rest of the way.
Peterson finished with 11 points and nine rebounds, and Brendan Driscoll made it three Turners players in double figures with 11 points of his own. Novak (nine points) and Jaden Whiting (eight) also contributed to the balanced offensive effort.
Mohawk’s Anthony Moffatt paced his side with 11 points, followed by Pollen with six points and Reuben Bassett with five points.
The good news about this must-win portion of the schedule for the Thunder is that the next three games come at home. That stretch begins tonight against Athol, and continues with home games against Pioneer and Belchertown next week.
“Coming off a nice win tonight, and even though we lost to them, if we come out like we did against Frontier, we can get on a roll,” Sanders said.
Mullins was still thinking about that Frontier loss following Wednesday’s victory, thinking back to what could have been had Turners finished the deal.
“I’m still disappointed in that Frontier game,” Mullins admitted. “Couple calls, couple things go our way and that’s a big game that we could’ve gotten. That’s the difference between being 6-9 and 7-8 right now. Hopefully we can get it back. Just keep banging away and see what we can do. One game at a time.”
Mohawk travels to Belchertown tonight in search of its first win since the season-opener against Franklin Tech.