Santos' Late Bucket Lifts Taconic Past Pittsfield
PITTSFIELD, Mass. – After acting as a facilitator all night, Caesar Santos was all set to take the game into his hands.
Santos, who passed out a half-dozen assists in a low-scoring “War on the Floor,” delivered the final shot with 2.8 seconds on the clock to give Taconic a 49-47 win over Pittsfield at the Boys and Girls Club on Monday night.
“Actually, no,” Santos said when asked whether the Thunder planned on him taking the last shot in a tie game. “The plan was to get it to Kyle McGrath, but it didn’t turn out. We wanted that, but they were biting on him, so I pulled up and shot it. I feel comfortable with the shot any day.
“It feels great. It feels great. It feels great.”
It was Santos’ only field goal of the night, but it could not have come at a better time as Taconic ran its record to 6-1 and won Round One of the city rivalry.
It made sense that the Thunder was hoping to get the ball to McGrath with the game on the line. All he did was score 30 points and grab 10 rebounds in the victory.
He was the only Taconic player in double figures scoring, but Martin Boua had 13 rebounds to go with his six points.
Quincy Abellie had a double-double for Pittsfield with 16 points and 10 rebounds before leaving with an apparent leg injury early in the fourth quarter. Kyle Cardoso finished with 11 points in the loss.
Abellie’s injury was one sour note in a spirited night as the Thunder and Generals locked horns in front of a big crowd at the Club.
Although the game was short on points, it was full of action and last-minute drama.
Pittsfield, which trailed by 12 points early in the second quarter, fought back to make it a one-point game at half-time, and it was a two-possession game just once in the second half, when Cardoso’s bucket put Pittsfield up, 47-43, with about 2 minutes, 30 seconds left to play.
Thirty seconds later, Santos drove into the lane and dished to Boua for a bucket to get Taconic back to within two points.
After the teams traded empty trips, Taconic had the ball after a timeout with 1:00 on the clock, and McGrath scored to tie it.
Pittsfield got a look at the basket late in its possession at the other end, but the shot rimmed out, and Taconic got a team rebound with 28 seconds on the clock, setting the stage for Santos’ game-winner.
He took the ball from Quincy King and dribbled into the front court, biding his time just inside the time line before driving to the top of the key and then the elbow before pulling up for the winning shot. Pittsfield was unable to advance the ball into the frontcourt, and Taconic won its third straight.
“He’s a confident kid,” Taconic coach Bill Heaphy said of Santos. “I think he’d even tell you he wasn’t happy with his game tonight. But he always works so hard.
“He’s got guts. I could see it, and that’s why I didn’t call timeout [during the play]. I didn’t know if it would go in. But I figured, let’s roll with this. I’m glad he didn’t continue to try to get into the lane. He took what was given to him and knocked it down. Which he can do.”
Early on, McGrath and Boua were dictating the action for Taconic, which took its first double-digit lead on a pair of McGrath free throws to make it 17-7 late in the first quarter. Nate Reynolds drove to the basket to make it a 12-point margin at 21-9 early in the second period.
But after Pittsfield coach Jerome Edgerton called a quick timeout just a minute into the quarter, Abellie knocked down a 3-pointer that ignited an 11-2 run for the Generals that made it a three-point game midway through the period.
“He’s been huge for us the last few games,” Edgerton said of Abellie, a sophomore sixth man in the early going for Pittsfield. “He’s really coming on, really working hard in practice. We’re starting to see him grow up right in front of our face.”
Taconic led again by six, but Pittsfield used a 7-1 run to tie the game when Freddy Conyers drove the baseline for an and-one with 1:01 left in the half.
A free throw from Boua sent Taconic into the locker room up, 30-29.
The teams went blow for blow through the third quarter, but the biggest blow of the night was dealt to Pittsfield when Abellie had to go to the bench after hitting the deck fighting for a defensive rebound.
“It was big, because he was playing very well for them,” Heaphy said. “Hitting a few of those mid-range jumpers for them. He’s a good sized body down there. It hurts. You hate to see that happen to anybody, and I hope he recovers quick.”
Heaphy’s Taconic team has a quick turnaround, hosting Wahconah on Wednesday for the second of three games this week.
Pittsfield (4-3) will look to snap a two-game slide on Friday when it hosts Agawam.
“We’re good, that’s the thing,” Edgerton said. “It’s still early to me. The season doesn’t get late until Jan. 16. … We’re just figuring out things, figuring out lineups still.
“Monument [Mountain] and Taconic – to lose both games by a combined eight points when people don’t give us a shot? We’re going to be there at the end.”