FRANKLIN, Mass. - Josh Macchi only scored two points on Thursday night, but they couldn't have come at a better time.
With Franklin up 36-33 and just over a minute to play, Macchi tried to go up and under. It missed, but Marcus Giese got just enough to tip the offensive rebound right back to Macchi and he laid it in with a defender draped all over him.
The Panthers never looked back, taking down Wachusett 44-35 to advance to the D1 Central Semifinals.
After Macchi’s bucket, Giese came up with a block on the other end. Wachusett kept possession but Dylen Reno came away with the steal, converted the lay up while getting fouled and sank the free throw to put the Panthers up 41-33 with 58.9 seconds to play.
“At the end of the day, you have to grind out tough wins sometimes,” Franklin head coach CJ Neely said. “We missed a ton of layups early, we missed a ton of open threes. I told them we were getting good looks but they just needed to focus. Going forward it will be great for us that we battled through a tough one like this.
“We win ugly, that’s how it goes here. I think our pressure was huge. I thought we did a much better job on Dion. We did a great job of getting out and switching on him. We had Tim [Prunier] and [Dylan] Reno and [Markus] Bohmiller and all three can guard him. The pressure got us some turnovers, got us some easy looks and we were able to grind one out.
Before Macchi scored his big bucket, it was senior Markus Bohmiller that helped keep Franklin close in a tight defensive battle.
Wachusett was either ahead or level for nearly the first 10 minutes of the second half before Bohmiller got the Panthers going. After Tyler Dion put the Mountaineers up 29-27 but Bohmiller answered with a three to give Franklin its first lead of the half. After a stop on the defensive end, Bohmiller drained another one - again on a pass from Reno - and suddenly Franklin was up 33-29 with just over five minutes to play.
Bohmiller finished with a team-high 14 points to go along with eight rebounds - four offensive boards coming in the final quarter.
“It’s been a total transformation from the beginning of the season,” Neely said. “We’ve talked about it a hundred times but he’s a totally different player now. It’s his commitment to those rebounds, it’s stuff like that. Before it was running around, try to get some steals and hit some three’s. Now he’s one of our best scorers, one of the toughest guys we have, he’s up over guys shoulders trying to get those rebounds. I’m just so proud of the kid he’s become and I definitely think he could help somebody at the next level. He’s got a high ceiling for his potential.”
Franklin trailed Wachusett after the opening quarter 9-5 despite having over double the amount of field goals taken. The issue was that the Panthers shot just 2/19 from the floor in the opening stanza, including 0/7 from downtown.
The second quarter started better for Franklin as Bohmiller connected on a three to cut the deficit to one, but Franklin entered the halftime break tailing 21-18 and shooting just 7/33 from the field.
“I think the frustration started to set in for us when we didn’t jump out to an early lead, we weren’t beating them off the glass, we missed some tough shots,” Neely said. “We had to regroup as a team and then get back in there and make it happen.”
Franklin’s defense help keep them in it though. Despite only having 19 points 20 minutes into the game, the Panthers were only down by six. The teams traded empty trips before Reno (10 points, six boards, four assists) finally ended the drought. A minute later, Tim Prunier (11 points, 11 rebounds) took a pass from Dan Robert and calmly sank a three to make it a one point game. Wachusett ended up taking a two points lead - 27-25 - into the final quarter.
The Panthers now return to WPI to take on St. John’s Shrewsbury in the D1 Central Semifinals. The game is a rematch of last year’s D1 Central final. The two teams played once this season with SJS take a 66-59 win. The game is scheduled for Sunday at WPI at 1:00.
Ryan Lanigan can be contacted at [email protected] and followed on Twitter at @R_Lanigan.