East Longmeadow Pulls Away from Taconic Late
PITTSFIELD, Mass. -- The young Taconic boys basketball team Monday showed that it knows how battle back from an early deficit.
It did not get the win, but it may have gotten a shot of confidence going into Thursday’s Berkshire County opener against Drury.
Collin Lindsay scored 17 points, and the East Longmeadow boys basketball team outscored Taconic 10-1 in the final three minutes to earn a 52-46 win in the Pittsfield Hoop Club Holiday Classic at the Boys & Girls Club.
Javier Osorio and Quintin Gittens scored 16 and 15, respectively, to lead Taconic, which rallied from deficits of 10, seven and six points before briefly leading by three in the fourth quarter.
Taconic coach Bill Heaphy was pleased with the no-quit attitude his team displayed on Monday.
“I thought early -- the way it was going, ‘Boy, this one is going to be tough if we don’t do something,’ “ Heaphy said. “And the kids responded. They cut that deficit from 19-9 at one time.
“They came back and fought. We’re doing a lot of fundamental, one-on-one basketball stuff with these guys. And they’ve played hard and bought into it. We just hope we’re going to keep getting better.”
Taconic (1-3) came up a little short in its bid to build on its first win of the season -- Friday over Chicopee.
But in the early going on Monday, it looked like the Spartans would run away with it.
After Jordan Wiggins (13 points) scored in the post to make it 19-9 late in the first, Taconic got a baseline drive from Gittens to spark a 10-0 run.
Gittens hit a 3-pointer with an assist from Isaac Perry on Taconic’s first possession of the second quarter, and Nick Sayers’ 3 made it 19-17. Osorio then drove the baseline to tie the game midway through the second.
East Longmeadow finished the half on a 9-2 run, but Taconic came out of the locker room with an 11-2 spurt started by back-to-back Gittens triples.
Taconic led twice in a back-and-forth third quarter and started the fourth with one of three second-half triples by Quincy Davis to take a 45-42 lead.
Heaphy’s defense, which got better throughout the night, held East Longmeadow off the board for the first 5 minutes, 20 seconds of the fourth quarter before Jason Ayala hit a 3-pointer to tie it for the Spartans.
Perry hit a free throw to give Taconic its final lead at 46-45 with 1:40 on the clock, but the Spartans scored the final seven points, starting with a putback by Lindsay.
East Longmeadow took maximum advantage after Taconic’s lone senior, Osorio, departed with about three minutes left and his team in the lead due to what Heaphy characterized as an asthma issue.
Heaphy said he was getting the leadership he expected from Osorio, the lone holdover from last year’s senior-laden team that earned a trip to the Western Mass title game.
“He’s been waiting for this time,” Heaphy said of Osorio. “He’s been preparing for it. He’s really worked the last two summers for this moment. … He’s really worked hard. And he was a warrior tonight. I think he’s only going to get better, too, but he’s getting more and more confident with each game.”