Taconic Boys Advance Past Pittsfield

PITTSFIELD, Mass. – The boys of the Pittsfield High and Taconic basketball programs know one another so well that there really was not much to be learned about the opponent in their regular-season finale last week.

 

But Taconic did learn something about not letting up the gas against the Generals.

 

“Definitely,” Sean Harrigan said after scoring 15 points in a 65-45 win over Pittsfield in the Western Massachusetts Class B quarter-finals.

 

“Last week, I feel like we let them get close. We definitely shouldn’t have done that. We came out, clearly, as the better team today, and came out and put the pedal down from the jump. Played two great halves.”

 

Taconic stormed out to a 17-2 lead in the first quarter.

 

The run began and ended with 3-pointers from Harrigan, who also had an assist to Tyvon Sandifer (team-high 18 points) during that stretch.

 

Taconic held the Generals to just six points in the first quarter and 14 points at half-time before Pittsfield was able to rally in the second half to cut into a 38-14 deficit.

 

“We haven’t been starting well in games,” Taconic coach Bill Heaphy said. “It’s been a real problem and tough to watch. So we really worked on that Saturday and Sunday about starting and so forth.

 

“We threw in that zone a little bit to see if that would get them a little off balance, and it seemed to a little bit. Offensively, I thought we took good shots. A lot of their run-outs last game were off bad shots, bad decisions, turnovers and things like that. We had to value the ball a little bit better, and I think we did that.”

 

Taconic won the first-half turnover battle by a margin of 14-3.

 

Of course, when the teams played on Valentine’s Day, Taconic took a 49-41 lead into the fourth quarter before holding on for a 69-68 win.

 

This time, Pittsfield made things a tight in the third quarter with a 12-2 run to get within 17 points.

 

Carter Mungin scored nine of his game-19 during that stretch, including a couple of and-ones in the post. His second conventional three-point play of the quarter cut Pittsfield’s deficit to 47-30 with 2:26 left in the period.

 

Sam Sherman hit a pull-up from the foul line to push Taconic’s lead back to 19, and Sandifer’s triple got the margin back to 20 moments later. Pittsfield never got closer than 18 points the rest of the way.

 

Taconic (15-4) moves on to Wednesday’s regional semi-finals and another Berkshire County foe when Monument Mountain makes the trip north.

 

Pittsfield (5-14) learns Tuesday who it will face in its regular season finale.

 

Photos from this game here.