Taconic Overcomes Slow Start, Stops Wahconah
PITTSFIELD, Mass. – The Taconic boys basketball team Wednesday used an 11-1 run late in the first half to open a 12-point lead and went on to a 58-46 win.
Kyle McGrath had a double-double with 20 points and 11 rebounds. Quincy King scored 16 points, and Ceasar Santos had 12 points and three assists as the Thunder ran its record to 7-1 this winter.
After a slow first quarter offensively for both teams, Taconic came alive in the second quarter, outscoring the visitors, 25-14.
“I can’t put a finger on it,” Taconic coach Bill Heaphy said of the reason his team scored just 10 points in the first eight minutes. “We know that they’ll play a packed-in zone, and they’re active, they’re athletic, so they don’t make it easy for you.
“And, if you’re not patient and if you’re not moving the ball from both sides of the floor, they make it hard. That was the message at half-time: Look at [Wahconah’s] patience, they were getting, as a result, open looks with like four or five passes. We were shooting with two passes, and they’re not good shots.”
Taconic started shooting the ball better in the second quarter, when McGrath hit a pair of 3s and scored 12 points.
His triple from the left-wing corner gave Taconic a 27-22 lead with 2 minutes, 50 seconds left in the half.
Quentin Christopher hit a free throw, and King knocked down a 3 with an assist from Nate Reynolds to make it a nine-point spread by the 1:20 mark.
Evan Alfonso (15 points) got to the free throw line and sank one to interrupt Taconic’s run, which ended with a King bucket in transition and a Santos jumper from the left wing to put the Thunder ahead, 35-23, in the locker room.
In the third quarter, Taconic stretched its lead to 17 after a basket by King made it 47-30.
Wahconah answered with a pair of Aidan Hagmaier free throws and an Alfonso 3, but Taconic got a triple from Santos and a putback from King in the closing seconds to end the third ahead, 52-35.
Wahconah coach Dustin Belcher lit a fire under his team in the huddle before starting the fourth.
“Our game plan was trying to limit possessions, and I thought we were rushing too many possessions on offense,” Belcher said. “If the game gets into too many possessions, it’s advantage Taconic. We needed to manage the possessions in the game, which I thought we did a particularly good job of until about two minutes to go in the first half.
“Then, I thought, again, we came out of the locker room and didn’t get the message at half-time. So we needed to make it a little clearer.”
Wahconah mounted an 11-3 run to start the fourth quarter.
Sam McLaughlin (team-high 16 points) hit a 3-pointer, and Alfonso hit a wing 3 to get the margin to single digits, 55-46, with 3:52 left in the game.
After a timeout, Taconic reinserted McGrath, and he helped close the door as the Thunder kept Wahconah off the scoreboard for nearly four minutes to secure the win.
“We did a better job of staying connected,” Heaphy said of the closing minutes. “We didn’t give them too much room. And they can shoot. They’ve got some kids who can shoot the ball if you let ‘em. We talked about staying connected to their shooters and try to take the 3 away as best we could.”
Taconic goes to Springfield International Charter on Friday.
Wahconah (2-7) will look to snap a four-game skid on Friday at West Springfield.