SHEFFIELD, Mass. – Matt Lowe and Sean Warren combined for 11 3-pointers and 37 points, and the Mount Everett boys basketball team jumped out to a fast start en route to a 73-39 win over Mount Greylock on Friday night.
The Eagles earned a 42-21 advantage in rebounding as Brady Carpenter grabbed eight boards, and Tyler Jacobs pulled down seven.
“We got to see [Mount Greylock] at the scrimmage early in the year, so we knew they didn’t have a ton of height,” Mount Everett coach Jowe Warren said. “We definitely took that to heart tonight.
“We knew we had to out-rebound them, because, if we didn’t, we’re just not working hard. So I thought we did a good job on the glass tonight.”
Warren set the tone by scoring the game’s first points from behind the arc.
He went on to hit another of his six 3-pointers on the way to an 18-point night in a 17-4 first quarter for the hosts.
Lowe scored eight of his 19 points in the second quarter to help send the Eagles into the locker room with a 42-17 lead.
For a moment in that second quarter, though, it looked like the Mounties might be able to put a dent in Mount Everett’s big early lead.
Ward Bianchi (six points) hit a runner in the lane to start an 11-0 spurt for Mount Greylock that got the Mounties within 19. Nolan Barnes hit a triple on his way to a game-high 21 points in that run, which ended with a basket from Malcolm Leyda in transition to make it 36-17.
“I wasn’t happy about that,” Jowe Warren said of the Mounties’ run. “We talked about that in the locker room, because, last year, it was the opposite. We went up to their place, and they jumped up by 25 or 30 at half-time, and then we made a run back at them and tied it.
“So, we said, the game is not over. You guys felt like you fell asleep in that second quarter. We’ve got to keep the intensity up.”
Lowe hit a pair of 3-pointers to end the second quarter and push the margin back to 25 points.
In the third, he scored eight more points to give the Eagles a 30-point margin heading to the fourth.
Although nearly half of Mount Everett’s points came from 3-pointers, Jowe Warren knows there will be nights when that shot is not falling.
“When we moved the ball and tried to hit the post once in a while, I think it opens up our offense,” he said. “We’re trying to get the kids to buy into that.
“You live or die [by 3s], if you shoot too many. That’s why we’re trying to focus on trying to get the ball in the paint, too, and score in the paint, whether it’s a slash or a big down there. We’ve got to have a balanced scoring attack.”
Mount Greylock, which has yet to score 40 points in a game this winter, is yet to find its rhythm consistently at the offensive end. But coach Tommy Verdell knew that his young Mounties were going to go through some growing pains this winter.
“We’re young, and right now we’re young and short-handed, because we’re down two kids who will probably start,” Verdell said of his team, which has no seniors and nine underclassmen. “But it’s what we’ve got to go through. This is how you learn. This is how you get better.”
And he said his team is continuing to work hard despite an early lack of success on the scoreboard.
“I have in my wallet a note I wrote in September,” Verdell said, pulling the yellow Post-It out to demonstrate. “I wrote, ‘If we don’t get scoreboard victories, how do we not feel defeated.’
“When I leave that locker room, we don’t feel defeated. So that means we’re winning. We trust in what we’re trying to do and the process and building. They know who they are and who we are. And we’re just trying to get better.”
Mount Greylock (0-5) hosts Turners Falls on Monday.
Mount Everett (4-2) is at Lenox on Jan. 3.
