WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- The Monument Mountain boys basketball team needed a spark in the second half on Saturday at Mount Greylock.
Kieran Santos stepped up to lead the way.
Santos scored nine of his 13 points in the third quarter to help Monument Mountain erase an eight-point deficit en route to a 48-40 win.
"Kieran, the last two nights, I'll tell you what, he's like our maintenance man," Monument Mountain coach Randy Koldys said. "He says, what do I need to do? 'I need to rebound tonight?' and he does that. 'I need to go get steals tonight?' And that's what he does. 'I need to make a couple of 3s, tonight.' And that's what he does.
"He's really a glue guy, which is really important for us. He's come so far the three years he's played, and I love having him on the team. Just the fact that he did what he did tonight and last night to spark us to victory is a big thing. He's been a real leader for us, too. He's one of our captains."
On Friday night, Santos led the Spartans to victory in their rematch with Wahconah, a one-point winner in Dalton in Monument's season opener.
On Saturday afternoon, Mount Greylock led the whole first half after Pablo Santos' 3-pointer gave his team a 5-2 lead in the opening minutes.
It was 24-16 at the break, and Santos gave the Mounties a nine-point lead on their first possession of the second half with a free throw for the first point of the half.
The foul that gave him that opportunity allowed Koldys a brief sideline huddle to reinforce his half-time message.
"It wasn't the half-time part, it was right after half-time, about 30 seconds in, they came over, and they were complaining that they weren't getting any calls," Koldys said. "I said, 'Guys, they're not gonna bail you out. You have to bail yourselves out.'
"To their credit, they did a really good job defensively in the second half. Up until the last 45 seconds of the game, they had given up nine points in the second half. I was really pleased with the defensive effort."
After the Spartans got the message from their coach, Kieran Santos then hit a 3-pointer to get the deficit back to six, made a steal on defense and went the other way for a lay-in to make it 25-21 and start Monument on a 17-0 run.
Santos put back an offensive rebound of his own miss to give the Spartans their first lead since 2-0 at 27-5 midway through the quarter.
With 1:35 left in the period, he set up Connor Hanavan in transition to make it 33-25.
The Mounties got basketbs from Pablo Santos and Chase Doyle (nine points, 14 rebounds) to get within four.
But the Spartans held the Mounties scoreless for the first four minutes of the fourth quarter, running their lead back to double digits when Caden Gidarakos (nine points) scored in transition to make it 40-29.
It was 48-33 with 1:37 left before Mount Greylock scored the last seven points.
In addition to Kieran Santos' big third quarter, another key for Monument Mountain was the play of Khalil Carlson, who got into early foul trouble and ended the first half with no points and just three rebounds.
In the second half, Carlson scored six and ripped down 12 rebounds.
"Khalil kind of played like a freshman tonight for the first time," Koldys said. "We put a lot of pressure on him to be at a certain level, and we're going to continue because he's going to be that good."
Monument Mountain is home on Monday to face Wahconah again.
Mount Greylock hosts Hoosac Valley on Monday.
