Through its first five games of the season, the Mahar boys basketball team has had its fair share of close finishes.
Two of those contests involving game-winning shots in the final 15 seconds.
Against Pioneer on Feb. 3, the Senators found themselves tied at 52 in the game’s final minute. They put the ball in the hands of Jake Tenney, who darted into the paint and dished out to a wide-open Matt Lyesiuk, who buried the go-ahead 3 with 12 seconds left.
Mahar got a stop on the other end of the court to earn a 55-52 victory.
Wednesday against Frontier, the Senators found themselves in nearly the same situation. The game was tied at 48, and they had the ball with under a minute to play. The shot clock was still turned on, not allowing for a true buzzer-beater.
Once again, the ball found its way into Tenney’s hands, and instead of dishing it, the senior took it to the hole himself, pulling up for a runner just outside the paint. He converted to put Mahar up 50-48 with 15 seconds left.
The Senators defense came up large in crunch time for the second time, getting a stop before converting free throws to earn a victory.
In a normal season, we’d be talking about how big of a threat Mahar would be come tournament time, as close games and adversity build character around a team, and clearly the Senators have the chops to play in close games.
Instead, Mahar will have to settle for trying to make a run for the Franklin County Bubble championship, a tournament where as of now they should be one of the favorites.
Don’t look now, but the Turners Falls girls basketball team has compiled a 4-1 record this season with wins over Athol, Mohawk Trail and Hopkins Academy before winning an overtime thriller against Pioneer last week.
With last season’s leading scorer Taylor Greene missing the last few games with an injury, it’s been Emily Young and Lily Spera filling the scoring void in her absence.
Young finished with 15 points in the win over the Golden Hawks and followed it up with 10 points in the win over the Panthers. Spera has been on fire on the offensive end of the floor as well, scoring 16 points against Hopkins and 14 against Pioneer.
Young is a junior while Spera and Greene are just freshmen, setting the Thunder up with a great core for the future. The success this winter has shown that the future may be here sooner than later, however.
The Greenfield boys basketball team beat Franklin Tech 61-31 on Thursday.
Nothing too crazy about that, right? Well, no, except for the fact that the Greenfield girls basketball team defeated the Eagles on Thursday as well.
That score? Also 61-31. Full moon? Play the lottery, folks.
Great teams know how to dig deep and turn it on when they need to, and so far this season the Greenfield hockey team has shown how explosive it can be on the offensive end, finding ways to score goals in a hurry to put teams away.
After winning its first three games, the Green Wave faced their first deficit of the season Saturday night, trailing South Hadley 3-0 late in the second period.
With five seconds left in the middle stanza, Derek Lenois put home a rebound to get the Wave on the scoreboard, giving them all the confidence in the world going into the final period of play. Greenfield capitalized on the last-second goal in the third period, tallying two more to force a 3-3 tie.
“I could feel the momentum change,” goalie Joshua Bordeaux said. “I felt it after that first goal.”
It’s been a balanced scoring effort from the Green Wave thus far this season, with eight different players finding the back of the net through four games. Shane Prusak has led the charge with five goals, while Devin Niles, Kyle Barnes, Aidan Roche and Sammy Knight all have three goals so far.
With so many scoring weapons, Greenfield is once again a force on the ice this season.