Drury Gets Revenge on Greenfield
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – The Drury boys basketball team Tuesday showed its depth and its savvy in earning a 53-51 win over Greenfield that avenged one of the Blue Devils’ three losses this season.
Jorge Bond scored 14 to lead three Blue Devils in double figures.
Sam Moorman had a double-double with 13 points and 11 rebounds, and Connor Hinkell had 13 points with nine boards and five assists as Drury improved to 9-3, one win away from qualifying for the Division 5 State Tournament.
While that trio has been producing for Drury all year, the Blue Devils got key contributions from its reserves, including a 3-pointer from Brayden Durant with an assist from Lucas Hamilton that put Drury on top for good, 45-42, early in the fourth quarter.
“We’ve got a lot of young kids,” Drury coach Jack Racette said. “We’re really young. I know everyone says we’ve got Moorman, but we really miss Myles Beauchamp, he hasn’t been around all year, and that’s big senior leadership that we’re missing.
“But, yeah, we went to our bench. You could see, we were tired. They were tired. I thought our bench played pretty well. Lucas Hamilton came in the game. And you don’t have to score. He defends well, he rebounds. He’s in the right position all the time, and he doesn’t turn the ball over.”
Drury only committed 10 turnovers on the night and just one in fourth quarter to put away the back-and-forth game.
After Durant’s triple broke a 42-42 tie, the Blue Devils led by as many as six, when Moorman scored to make it 52-46 with about three minutes left to play.
The Green Wave, which came back in the fourth quarter to force an overtime game it won when the teams met in Greenfield, mounted another fourth-quarter rally.
Caleb Thomas (game-high 18 points) made a 3-pointer with 2:01 left on the clock to get the visitors within a point at 52-51.
The teams then traded turnovers, and Erik Martineau grabbed a defensive rebound for Greenfield with about 30 seconds left.
But Bond got a steal for the Blue Devils with 18 seconds on the clock and earned a trip to the foul line with 10.6 remaining.
He made the second of his two free throws to give Drury a two-point lead.
Greenfield inbounded the ball 90 feet from the basket with what normally would be plenty of time to get a shot. But Drury had three fouls to give before putting the Green Wave in the bonus.
The Blue Devils committed one foul with 7.9 seconds left and their third of the quarter with 4.5 seconds showing.
Greenfield got the ball to Thomas in the post, but Drury’s Sam Bullett appeared to get a hand on his last second shot to preserve the win as time expired.
Racette agreed that his team executed well in the closing seconds.
“Those are things you start to work on as the season goes on,” he said. “You’re not worried about that the first month of the season. As the season goes on, you start doing more situational stuff – talking bout when to foul, how to foul, what are you going to run late in the game, where’s the ball going to be? All those things.
“And I thought we did a pretty decent job with it.”
Drury jumped out to an early lead, going ahead by as many as nine on a putback by Hinkell to make it 17-8 late in the first quarter.
But Greenfield switched to a 2-3 zone in the second quarter, and Drury did not have an answer, scoring just four points in the period as Greenfield took a 28-23 lead into the locker room.
Hinkell scored six points in the third quarter as Drury chipped away at that lead. Another Drury bench player, Colin Daly, put back an offensive rebound in the final minute of the period to finally tie it, 39-39.
Greenfield’s Jon Breor (17 points, 12 rebounds) got a conventional three-point play early in the fourth to give the Green Wave its last lead of the night, 42-39.
Bond answered with an assist from Hinkell to get Drury within a point, and Moorman drew a foul in the post and made one of his two free throws to tie it, setting the stage for Durant’s 3-pointer.
Drury will look for its 10th win on Friday night when it visits Wahconah.