Hoosac Valley Boys Pull Away Late at Wahconah
DALTON, Mass. -- The Hoosac Valley boys basketball team led most of the evening on Saturday at Wahconah.
But early in the fourth quarter, that lead became insurmountable in the blink of an eye.
Logan Davis hit 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions to stretch the margin to 19 points, ignite a 13-0 run and send the Hurricanes on to a 54-33 win.
“We come out with a set play, and Logan hit the 3 for us,” Hoosac Valley coach Bill Robinson said. “And then we found him on a skip pass in the same spot, and he hit back-to-back 3s. I thought that was pretty critical.”
Wahconah coach Dustin Belcher thought it was a dagger in his team’s chances of making a comeback.
“That took the wind out of our sails big time,” Belcher said. “I thought we had it within reach. And if we can come out, make a stop, come down and make a bucket and make another stop, I thought we’d be OK. And then they hit those two 3s, and it really set us back.”
Carson Meczwor scored 19 points, and Caleb Harrington added 11 as Hoosac Valley improved to 3-0 on the young season and knocked Wahconah (3-1) from the ranks of the unbeaten.
Neither team set the world on fire offensively in the early going. Wahconah took its last lead of the night when Brody Calvert slashed to the basket to make it 12-10 midway through the second quarter.
But the Hurricanes started to heat up with an 11-0 run to half-time.
Meczywor got things started with a bucket in transition that he turned into a three-point play. Harrington scored six points in the run, putting back an offensive rebound, sinking a free throw and connecting from outside the arc to give Hoosac a 21-12 half-time lead.
The Hurricanes upped their offensive production in the second half, using a 7-0 run late in the third and the 13-0 skein at the start of the fourth.
“We figured some things out against the zone,” Robinson said. “We made some adjustments, and they were able to find the open players and knock down shots. That’s all the game’s about, knocking down shots.
“When you make shots, your defense gets better, and it’s tough.”
Calvert led Wahconah’s offense with seven points. Quinn Gallagher and Zack Bondini added five apiece.
Wahconah was playing its fourth game in as many days and coming off an emotional one-point win over Monument Mountain on Friday night.
“The last seven minutes, I thought [the reserves] battled hard,” Belcher said. “They came in and gave us some good minutes.
“The first half of the game, you could see that our legs weren’t there. We missed a couple of bunnies inside, a couple of open 3s that we’ve been hitting that we didn’t make. We just emptied our tank, I think. We ran out of gas.”