Hornets Hold on Late to Beat Lee

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – The McCann Tech boys basketball team Monday played lockdown defense early and held on late to earn a 50-47 win over Lee.

 

Zach Howland scored 14 points to lead three Hornets in double figures as the Hornets won for the third time in four games.

 

The Hornets led the Wildcats to just two points in the first 6 minutes, 50 seconds of the game and limited Lee to single digits in each of the first three quarters to take a 38-25 lead into the fourth.

 

“We played as a team tonight,” Howland said. “We were really hard working, so I appreciate my team for coming out, and we haven’t always been like this. So it’s like a building block.

 

“We worked on [defense] in practice the other day, and it’s finally just, like I said, all our stuff is clicking together finally.”

 

Hornets coach Chris Bullett was glad to see things click against a Lee team that scored 73 points its last time out.

 

“We’ve been working hard on defense, we just haven’t been working together” Bullett said. “Today was the first time all five guys helped each other. We helped the helper. So the different things we’ve been going over in practice. We weren’t protecting the paint very well, and the way we helped today, they couldn’t even get in the paint.

 

“So I’m super happy with the effort on ‘D.’ “

 

McCann Tech forced six turnovers in the first three minutes of the game and 15 Lee giveaways in the first half.

 

Meanwhile, Howland and Eric Rougeau (11 points, nine rebounds) led the way as the Hornets maintained a double-digit lead most of the night.

 

Lee battled back to make it a one-possession game with 11.7 seconds left when Mitchell Keenan (nine points) made his third 3-pointer of the fourth quarter to make it 50-47.

 

After a timeout, McCann Tech got the ball into the front court and got to the free throw line with 4.1 seconds on the clock. Neither shot went down, but Lee could not control the rebound until the ball went out of bounds to the Wildcats with 1.9 seconds on the clock.

 

A desperation heave from the backcourt went off the backboard to end it.

 

Lee coach J.T. Brown said McCann Tech’s defense contributed to his team’s early offensive woes.

 

“I think we just got off to a really slow start,” Brown said.  “Too much one-on-one, turned the ball over. It was just a sloppy first half. But the fourth quarter we came back and fought.

 

“They’re a good team. They play good defense. They were aggressive. They were physical. A few of the passes was our mistake, but a lot of it was credit to them.”

 

A Howland triple gave McCann Tech its first double digit lead at 16-6 late in a low-scoring first-quarter.

 

Rougeau’s three late in the second quarter made it a 15-point margin at 28-13. It was 13 points at half-time with the Hornets up, 30-17, after Ben Kelly (team-high 12 points) made a pair of free throws for the visitors.

 

Lee briefly got within nine points in the third quarter, but McCann Tech scored six straight – a pair of free throws from Howland, a bucket in the post from Hector Montoya-Alvarado and a Howland drive from the right wing to make it 38-23.

 

Montoya-Alvarado (10 points, seven rebounds) scored McCann Tech’s first eight points of the fourth quarter, scoring in transition with an assist from Rougeau to make it 46-31 midway through the period.

 

“Hector’s growing by the day,” Bullett said of Montoya-Alvarado. “He’s coming ready to work every day, and he’s doing great things for us. So when we put him in there and we can get that out of the post, it really helps us a lot. It opens up the offense for everybody else.”

 

Lee’s offense, meanwhile, got on track in the fourth, scoring 22 points to nearly equal its production in the rest of the game.

 

Omari Smith scored five of his seven points, and Joe Abderhalden had three of his eight in the last eight minutes.

 

Still, the Hornets would have kept Lee at arm’s length if it they had made their free throws.

 

McCann Tech went 2-for-12 at the line in the fourth quarter.

 

“We’ve been terrible at it all year,” Bullett said. “We’ve been working on it, but we need it to close out games. It makes me nervous over there. [The lead] went from 15 down to three? And if we had made free throws, we would easily have had like a 15-, 20-point win.”

 

McCann Tech (4-6) goes to Turners Falls on Thursday.

 

Lee (8-2), which saw a five-game winning streak come to an end on Monday, looks to get back in the win column on Tuesday at home against Smith Academy.

 

Photos from this game to come.