Clinton Boys Rally in Second Half to Top Monument Mountain
GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. – Monument Mountain boys basketball coach Randy Koldys did not get the holiday gift he was hoping for on Saturday.
Now he hopes that his Spartans will find a way to convert a lump of coal into a diamond that will shine come playoff time.
Davis Lunn scored 32 points, and the Clinton Gaels erased a 26-point second-half deficit to earn an 80-72 win on Saturday afternoon.
“I think this could be a very important part of our season today – how we rebound from this, whether we stay together or we go our own separate ways,” Koldys said after the collapse.
“And, you know, one of the things this team has not faced a lot of during the regular season is adversity. And I don’t think you can face any much worse adversity than today, blowing a 26-point lead. I think that we’ve just got to weather the storm and figure it out.”
The day started out bright and sunny for the Spartans.
After a pregame ceremony to honor 2024 graduate Khalil Carlson for scoring a program-record 1,511 points (18.2 ppg) and pulling down 772 rebounds (9.3 rpg) while blocking 155 shots and passing out 211 assists in leading Monument to a 66-17 record over four years, the current crop of Spartans jumped all over the visitors from Central Mass.
Manny Brown scored 21 points in the first half to help the hosts grab a 50-26 lead at the break.
Everything was working for the 2024 Western Mass finalists – particularly their defense, which forced 13 first-half turnovers.
Isaiah Keefner backed up Brown with 12 points, and Griffin McElroy added seven.
Brown hit a pair of 3-pointers and had an and-one on a drive to the basket in the closing moments of the half to send the Spartans to the locker room riding high.
Another Brown bucket, this one assisted by McElroy, in the opening minute of the first half, gave Monument Mountain its biggest lead of the game, 52-26.
But that was the last moment when the second half looked anything like the first.
Monument Mountain, which committed just two turnovers in the first half, matched that total in the first four minutes of the third quarter, when Clinton (4-0) went on a 16-4 run to cut the lead nearly in half when Colin Schmidt (10 points) drove to the hole, got fouled and sank a pair of free throws with 2 minutes, 16 seconds left in the period.
Keefner snapped that run with a triple assisted by Dom Calautti, but the Gaels scored the last 11 points of the quarter to make it a two-possession game.
Ethan Frisch (16 points, 10 rebounds) put back an offensive rebound, Lunn scored from NBA 3-pointer range, and Christian Green (12 points) knocked down a pair of 3s to make it 59-53 with eight minutes to play.
Clinton coach Steve Manguso said the comeback started with defense.
“We weren’t making shots that we usually hit, and we certainly weren’t defending them,” Maguso said of the first half. “So when we started getting stops, that put a little pressure on them. I thought when we got within 12, the game kind of turned.”
Manguso said the Gaels did not make any major adjustments defensively at half-time with one exception.
“We just tried to sure up some things,” he said. “And we did. We got some stops. “Grady Frisch, the sophomore, came in, and he’s probably our best defender. He covered Brown, and he did a good job and made things difficult for him.”
Brown still scored 10 points in the second half, but just four came in the fourth quarter when Clinton took the lead.
Lunn hit a deep e with 6:20 on the clock to tie the game, 61-61. And Grady Frisch’s drive to the basket on the Gaels’ next possession gave them their first lead since 2-0.
Brown then drove the right wing and got to the line, converting two free throws to tie it, 63-63.
But Lunn answered with another triple, and Ethan Frisch scored in the post to make it a five-point lead that Clinton never surrendered.
Monument Mountain hung on for a while, getting with two when McElroy drained a 3 to make it 74-72 with 1:14 on the clock.
But the Spartans were soon forced to foul, and Clinton made six of its last 10 at the stripe while holding the hosts off the scoreboard the rest of the way.
Monument Mountain (4-1) has one more game this calendar year, going to Springfield International Charter on Monday afternoon.