Harrigan Scores 30 in Win at Drury
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. -- The Taconic boys basketball team started its season just last week.
It has played just six games.
And, unfortunately, it has just three games left.
But Taconic hits the home stretch with a three-game winning streak after knocking off Drury, 63-56, on Tuesday night.
Sean Harrigan led the way with 30 points, 11 rebounds, and some big defensive plays down the stretch.
"It's starting to come together," Harrigan said. "It feels good to start to come together with your teammates. We have a bunch of young kids coming up from JV last year, so it's kind of hard at the beginning of the season, but they're starting come together."
Harrigan scored just four points in the first quarter against the Blue Devils, but he started to heat up at the end of the second, knocking down a 3-pointer with 1 minute, 30 seconds left and driving the baseline for Taconic's last points in a 28-28 first half.
"He started slow, but then, as you saw, as the game got going, I think we kind of woke up little bit," Taconic coach Bill Heaphy said. "And then you saw what he did. He made quick plays, made some really nice moves to the basket. And he's tough to keep in front of you defensively. He was finding some seams, getting to the basket and finishing with both ends.
"It was a good effort from him."
Taconic got 11 points from Devan Solomon and 10 from Frank Boua.
Drury got 17 points apiece from Louis Guillotte and Ben Moulton, the latter with four 3-pointers. Tim Brazeau posted a double-double 11 points and 13 rebounds.
The teams traded baskets and leads throughout the first half and into the third quarter with Drury taking a 35-34 advantage on a conventional three-point play by Guilotte with 5:15 left in the third.
It turned out to be the final Blue Devil lead of the night.
"We just didn't want to lose," Harrigan said. "We came out of a timeout thinking, 'We can't lose. We've got to win out the rest of the season.' "
After a timeout with 4:32 left in the third, Taconic went on a 6-0 run for a lead it never relinquished.
Maimoudou Bamba got things started with a putback in transition. Harrigan then knocked down a long 2 to make it 38-35, and then he finished the run with a bucket in transition to give his team a five-point cushion.
Early in the fourth, Harrigan drove the lane for an and-one to give Taconic the biggest lead of the night for either team at 49-41.
But Drury answered with a 6-0 run that featured two baskets by Guillotte and a pair of free throws from Brazeau.
Two minutes later, it was back to an eight-point margin when Harrigan scored in transition to make it 57-49. A pair of Moulton 3s helped Drury get back within four, but after a Boua putback at one end of the court, Harrigan grabbed a defensive rebound at the other end and drove the length of the court to make it 63-55 with 42 seconds left.
Drury (6-4) gets a day off to prepare for Pittsfield before finishing against Lee on Friday.
Taconic continues a stretch of four games in five nights on Wednesday when Lee visits Valentine Road.
"I wouldn't say we're hitting our stride, but what we talked about coming up here is the ball is actually more familiar," Heaphy said. "Our wind is a little bit better. Our conditioning is a little bit better. And that all means a ton in this game. We're starting to know each other a little bit, in spite of not having practice time.
"You can definitely see there are things we need to go over. But it does feel better than it did 10 days ago."