NORTHFIELD — It took just 2 minutes, 28 seconds for an 8-point, fourth-quarter Pioneer Valley Regional School lead to evaporate Monday night. What followed was an 18-4 run from visiting Hoosac Valley High School to close the game, and it stopped the seventh-seeded Panthers in their tracks for the second consecutive year.
No. 10 Hoosac showed its championship pedigree in crunch time, as the two-time defending champs survived a wild game of fourth-quarter seesaw to capture a 55-49 win over Pioneer in a Western Massachusetts Division III Tournament opening-round contest at Messer Gymnasium.
The loss ended the Panthers’ season at 15-6, and it was the second straightb year the squad was bounced from the D-III Tournament at home by Hoosac. Last year’s team fell in the quarterfinals.
“They’ve been in these spots before. They’ve been here before a few times, so when they were down 8, they didn’t panic,” lauded Pioneer head coach Scott Thayer of Hoosac. “I’m disappointed, no doubt. There are some sad kids in (the locker room). It’s always sad losing seniors who battled hard and worked their tails off all season.”
After spending the majority of the night playing catchup against a Hoosac team that sullied things up and made it a low-scoring first three quarters, Pioneer finally got on track and played the type of basketball it’s displayed during a 13-2 streak to close out the regular season. The Panthers showed patience on the offensive end and turned a 36-32 deficit early in the fourth quarter into a 45-37 lead on the strength of a 13-1 spree. Hoosac (12-9) was held to just one point in a 3:26 span, as the Panthers held the 8-point cushion with 3:48 to play.
With the crowd fired up and things seemingly settled however, Pioneer was unable to seal the deal. The Hurricanes went into a full-court press, ramping up the pressure and forcing timely turnovers. Hoosac also turned two straight missed shots on the defensive end into breakout points offensively, and Izaha Stubb’s 3-pointer with 1:15 remaining tied the game 48-48.
“We’ve struggled closing out games this year but I was very happy with how we responded after falling behind (by 8),” Hoosac Valley head coach Mike Larabee offered. “We turned up the pressure and (Pioneer) had trouble with it.”
Thayer was surprised at his team’s inability to take care of the ball in the waning minutes.
“We ran out of gas a bit and I really don’t know why that press bothered us so much,” he said. “It was a combination of that and we just wound up being very impatient on offense when we got that lead.”
After a Pioneer turnover, Stubbs hit the go-ahead layup for Hoosac with just 38 seconds remaining to put the visitors up 50-48. Again, the Panthers turned the ball over, looking to force overtime, and the Hurricanes made their foul shots to seal the deal. Hoosac hit 5 of 6 from the charity stripe the rest of the way, and a lonely Bryce Dobosz foul shot with 15 seconds left was all Pioneer could muster en route to the 55-49 final.
“We took the (45-37) lead and all of a sudden we stopped playing like we had done to get back into the game,” said Thayer. “All of a sudden you realize how much time is left and you don’t handle the situations. I knew (Hoosac) was going to keep coming and we were just trying to hang on, get to the 2-minute mark and go from there. But for whatever reason, we just couldn’t make the plays and things turned pretty quickly.”
Pioneer never really got comfortable for the majority of the night. Hoosac led 21-17 at halftime after holding the Panthers to just 5 points in the second quarter, and the Hurricanes continued to keep their opponent at arms length in the third. The lead grew to as many as 6 points (28-22), but a pair of late hoops from Brendan Emond cut the deficit to 34-32 entering the fourth.
“We played with enough energy and effort in the second half but there were times where we were only down 6 and it seemed like we thought it was bigger than that,” Thayer explained.
Still, the 13-1 run early in the fourth quarter came despite losing Emond (12 points) to his fifth foul with 5:11 remaining. Garrett Cote came up with a huge three-point play after being fouled going hard to the tin to jumpstart the run, and points from Tucker Llewelyn (13 points) and Tyler Martin ballooned the advantage to that 8-point margin.
But like they have time and time again in the past two seasons, the Hurricanes closed well when called upon. Stubbs scored 7 of his 10 points in the final 3:15, and Hoosac made the plays to advance to the D-III quarterfinals and a road trip to No. 2 Drury High School on Thursday night.
“This isn’t the most talented group of basketball players but I’ll tell you one thing, they have a lot of guts and they showed that tonight,” Larabee said.
Keagan McGrath led Hoosac with a game-high 19 points, as the Hurricanes put four players in double-figure scoring. It was the Hurricanes’ third game against Recorder-area teams this winter, as they split against Mahar Regional School (loss) and Greenfield High School (win) during the regular season.