NORTH ADAMS, Mass. -- The Drury boys basketball team Thursday used its high pressure defense and its transition offense to win its fourth straight, an 82-45 drubbing of Turners Falls.
Reece Racette scored 20 points, and Scott McGuire added 17 -- 15 in the first quarter alone -- as Drury improved to 4-1 this season.
The Blue Devils kept the visitors off the scoreboard until the final seconds of that first quarter as Drury built a 28-2 lead. It was 37-3 early in the second quarter before Turners Falls was about to start doing anything offensively.
The Devils forced turnovers on 12 of Turners Falls’ first 16 possessions to start the game.
“That was a pretty good quarter,” Drury coach Jack Racette said. “But we scored easy. We didn’t really knock down a lot of shots. That’s when we’ll play really good -- when we start knocking down shots, then we can get into our pressure.
“What happens when we don’t score? How do we get into our pressure then? That’s kind of what happened in the Hopkins game. In the third quarter, we couldn’t score, so we couldn’t get into our pressure.”
Hopkins outscored the Blue Devils by seven in that third quarter to open a seven-point lead en route to a nine-point win in the season opener.
Drury had no trouble keeping the pressure turned up on Turners Falls.
And McGuire came out strong with a drive on the left wing for the game’s first two points. Conor Clark went 4-for-4 at the foul line in the first four minutes -- the last two making it 11-0. McGuire then scored the next 11, including a 3-pointer and three free throws, to make it 21-0 with 3 minutes, 29 seconds left in the quarter.
Reece Racette’s 3-pointer, a pair of Chad Lawrence free throws and Ryan Dubie’s basket on an assist from J.J. Middleton capped the 28-0 opening run.
Lawrence finished in double figures with 10 points. Middleton scored six and had seven steals off the bench.
On a night when the Blue Devils scored their season high and held the opponent to a season low, there were contributions up and down the lineup.
“Ryan Dubie did a nice job, taking charges,” Racette said. “Those are the things that are going to make the difference in games that are close. That charge play [in the second half] -- it’s a 40-point game, but, for me, that means he’s going to do it in the biggest games. We’ve got to get everybody doing that.
“J.J. [Middleton] is starting to play like a senior. He didn’t play our first game, so he’s starting to get into basketball shape, too. He’s one of those kids who plays a lot of positions. He’s playing the post guy, but he’s also bringing the ball up.
“Both seniors. They’ve been in the program. They know what’s at stake for them. This is it.”
Drury hosts Mount Greylock on Tuesday.
