Monument Mountain Comes Back to Top Pittsfield

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. – A little less than a week after blowing a big half-time lead, the Monument Mountain boys basketball team flipped the script on Friday night.

 

Manny Brown and Griffin McElroy each finished in double figures as the Spartans erased a 13-point third-quarter deficit en route to a 58-52 win over Pittsfield.

 

After falling behind, 36-23, going into the locker room, Monument Mountain gave up just 16 points in the last 16 minutes of the game as it ran its record to 6-1 this winter.

 

“We changed to a zone defense, which helped us in the end,” Monument Mountain center Dom Calautti said. “Because we could contain their shooters with our fast guards on the top, and then I could worry about what’s on the bottom.”

 

Calautti made one of the biggest stops of the game midway through the third quarter when he took a charge to create one of Pittsfield’s 10 second-half turnovers in the middle of a 17-3 run for the hosts.

 

He said that moment did provide a spark for the Spartans.

 

“Definitely,” Calautti said. “It’s all about energy. We try to bring energy every day, into practice and in games. And with that charge being called, it brought a lot of energy and momentum to our game.”

 

Brown, who scored a game-high 23 points, agreed that the zone made a big difference in the second half.

 

“That really brought us a spark at the defensive end,” Brown said.

 

The senior captain also said the team learned a lesson from its game the previous Saturday, when it lost a 26-point lead against Clinton to lose at home.

 

“We put it past us,” Brown said. “The next practice we had, we had to come back and get stronger. We got stronger in practice, put it together for [Springfield International Charter on Monday] and moved on. We just have to keep building from here and put that loss in the past.”

 

Pittsfield looked like it was the stronger team early on, outscoring its hosts, 20-10, in the second quarter.

 

Quincy Abellie scored six of his 10 points in the second period, and Braiden Sullivan and Kyle Cardoso had five points apiece as the Generals built a 36-23 lead.

 

Abellie put back an offensive rebound to start a 7-0 spurt to end the half. Cardoso (team-high 14 points) followed with a steal and a 3-pointer, and then he assisted on an Abellie bucket to finish the run.

 

Pittsfield committed just two turnovers in the second quarter, but the Generals could not carry that ball security into the second half, when the Spartans’ zone gave the visitors fits.

 

“That was the turning point in the game,” Pittsfield coach Jerome Edgerton said of his team’s second half turnovers. “That’s what we harp on. We talk about turnovers, we talk about being careless with the ball. And I just thought we got out of our intensity, we got out of our mental focus. And we just squandered a 13-point lead because we literally gave them the ball.

 

“If turnovers are our issue that we have to deal with, that’s correctable. We’re going to be alright.”

 

Freddy Conyers (13 points) hit a jumper from the elbow early in the third quarter to give Pittsfield its last 13-point margin at 42-29.

 

From there, it was all Monument Mountain.

 

Isaiah Keefner scored to start a 9-0 run that included seven points from Brown and that big play by Calautti at the defensive end.

 

McElroy (14 points) closed the third quarter with an and-one in transition to get the margin down to just four points at 45-41.

 

“He was huge, some of the plays he made,” Monument Mountain coach Randy Koldys said. “The three-point play he made, the and-one, that was huge right there.”

 

McElroy also grabbed eight rebounds. Brown and Calautti led the Spartans with 12 boards apiece.

 

“I thought Griffin had some huge rebounds for us at the end of the game,” Koldys said. “Just to have a situation where we had to have the ball … and rebounding out of the zone is not one of our strengths. Tonight it was a strength.”

 

McElroy fed Calautti for a bucket in the post to start the fourth quarter, and he set up Christian Blanchard in transition to give the Spartans their first lead since early in the first quarter at 46-45.

 

The teams then traded baskets before McElroy hit a triple to give Monument Mountain its first two-possession lead at 53-49 midway through the fourth.

 

Pittsfield got back within one thanks to an Abellie basket in transition and a Conyers free throw with 3 minutes, 23 seconds on the clock to make it 53-52.

 

But that was the last point the Generals could manage.

 

McElroy scored with 2:55 remaining, and neither team put the ball in the basket again until Brown hit a pull-up jumper in the lane with 17 seconds left to make it 57-52. Keefner’s free throw with 1.6 seconds left provided the final margin and gave the Spartans a chance to prove a point to their coach.

 

“I told them before they left [the locker room at half-time], I said, ‘We don’t have it tonight,’ “ Koldys said. “ ‘I don’t think we’re going to make it. We’re not ready to come back.’ I said, ‘I hope you’re coming back in the locker room to tell me I’m wrong.’

 

“To a man, they all just said to me that I was wrong.”

 

Monument Mountain (6-1) goes to Baystate Charter on Monday, when Pittsfield (4-2) takes on Taconic at the Boys and Girls Club.