NORTH EASTON, Mass. - Oliver Ames faced its first deficit of the game, trailing 53-50 with 5:15 to play in the final quarter.
A traditional three-point play from Scituate gave the Sailors their first lead, but the experienced Tigers didn’t blink.
Oliver Ames went on to outscore Scituate 17-5 the rest of the way and finished with a 67-58 win over the visiting Sailors. Despite the Tigers being the #3 seed and Scituate coming in at #14, OA head coach Don Byron knew it would be a fight throughout.
“I didn’t think it would be [easy],” Byron said. “When the pairings came out and we saw we had Scituate, I know what we were in for. They are always in the state tournament it feels like and I know they’d be tough.”
Oliver Ames held a six point lead twice in the first quarter, and then a seven point lead early in the second, early in the third and then again with 3:41 to play in the third but couldn’t sink the Sailors.
“In the second half, in the tournament in a do or die situation, the kids had to react to the wild swings that can happen,” Byron said. “We would get the lead to seven but we just couldn’t get it to 10 or 12 because they kept fighting back. We told the kids in the locker room that the tournament is about persistence, constantly working at it and not knowing when the opportunity is going to come.”
The Tigers’ opportunity finally came when they were faced with their first deficit. After the traditional three point play by Scituate’s Ben McLarey (21 points, 11 rebounds), OA got two back on two free throws from Chris Kyne (20 points, seven rebounds).
Scituate tacked one more up on a free throw but Kyne converted on the other end to tie it at 54. Brendan Flynn came up with a huge blocked on a shot from Brian James and Ryan Carney drove straight through the paint for two to give OA a 56-54 lead with just under three minutes to play.
After Scituate sank one more foul shot, the Tigers finally opened their three-point account. After going 0-17 through the first 37-plus minutes, Carney banked one in from straight away to put OA up 59-55 with 2:11 to play.
After an offensive rebound by Kyne led to a free throw from Franklin Holgate, Scituate came down for a free throw of its own. On the ensuing possession Carney converted after yet another offensive board from Kyne to make it 62-56 with a minute to play.
On Scituate’s next two possessions, Oliver Ames’ guards continued their tight guarding and seemed the game. First, it was Handy who came away with the strip and Kyne converted the put back. On the Sailor’s next trip up the floor, it was the active hands of Holgate that forced a steal and Handy converted a lay up. Suddenly, Oliver Ames was up 10 with 37.4 seconds to play.
“I thought defensively we did some pretty good things to stop what they wanted to do from the floor but they got to the line to keep them moving,” Byron said. “We had a couple possessions in a row that came from the defensive end. Steal and run out from Rael, steal and run out by Holgate. We made some hustle plays to turn that three down around. We stuck with it.”
Carney scored nine of his 11 points in the second half and added eight rebound and four assists. Handy had eight points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals, Flynn had nine points, three rebounds and a key block while Brendan Welch had eight points and a team-high 12 rebounds.
“They had the size and the McLarey kid is just a bull of a kid,” Byron said. “Brendan Welch had to play through an ankle injury after not practicing for a couple days and he battled through it and played the kid tough. We gave him some help and I thought we did some good things on him defensively. I thought we put good pressure on the ball all night.”
Holgate finished with nine points and three rebounds, with seven of his points in the second half that helped Oliver Ames keep its lead.
Byron credited his team’s experience as all five starters are seniors, Sam Kelley is a senior and Holgate is an experience junior.
“You can’t recreate these situations,” Byron said. “You can go over sets and what you think they’ll do but you can’t create 1,000 people yelling at the top of their lungs and you standing at the foul line and having to make two shots that are do or die. Every time they go through this, its beneficial. Going through a tight game and not having a game that was easy is a benefit. If this situation shows up again hopefully we handle it as well as we did tonight.”
Oliver Ames advances to the quarterfinals and will host #6 Whitman-Hanson on Friday at 6:30.
Ryan Lanigan can be contacted at [email protected] and followed on Twitter at @R_Lanigan.