Too close

Friday, February 17, 2012

Joe Marchilena photo Bedford's Samuel Thomas blocks a shot by Hollis Brookline's Shea Whalen.

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It’s been six weeks since the Hollis Brookline High School boys basketball team suffered a 28-point loss at the hands of Bedford.

Does that mean the Cavaliers feel better about falling to the Bulldogs 44-39 Wednesday night? Yeah, but …

“It’s too late in the year to have moral victories,” HB coach Mike Soucy said. “Our goal from day one was to have an opportunity to play in the state tournament. I don’t know how many wins it’s going to take, but my guess is at least seven or eight. We’ve got some work to do.”

The loss drops HB to 5-9 in Division II, leaving them in the 16th and final postseason spot – barely.

For Bedford (11-3), it was a game that had coach John Langlois worried. Not only had the Bulldogs won easily last time, but they were coming off a 24-point win over John Stark and have a big game against Souhegan on Friday.

“I was very worried,” Langlois said. “Hollis had won four out of six. They just beat Con-Val (on Monday) by 40. They’re playing really hard and they’re playing together. They’re a good basketball team right now.”

The Cavs were able to get an early lead, but it was short lived. After HB went up 7-6, Bedford responded with a 14-4 run to take a 20-11 lead with 5:18 to play in the first half. The Cavs got back within five points, but struggled from the field, struggled on the boards and turned the ball over 11 times in the first.

“We didn’t rebound in the first half,” Soucy said. “Most of their points came off offensive rebounds or fouls, where we fouled them because we didn’t rebound. We missed some shots that we’d like to have back. We missed a couple of layups, a couple of 3s, a couple of mid-range jumpers that were open.

“I told them coming in, there were a couple of things we needed to do. We had to guard. We had to rebound. We had to make some shots. Those shots obviously did not fall. We scored 15 points and that’s not going to get it done.”

The Bulldogs led 26-15 at the break, and felt good about the way they had been playing defensively. But in the second half, HB started to find ways to beat Bedford’s attacking zone and started hitting shots.

“Our defense is very good and second half it broke down a little bit,” Langlois said. “They hit some shots, too. That’s going to happen.”

Bedford didn’t help itself any, shooting 17 of 31 from the free throw line.

“We’re usually a 70 percent foul shooting team,” Langlois said. “We missed one, then we missed another one, and then we missed another.”

But HB only went to the line eight times, making just four.

“Who shot the most free throws and that’s probably the team that won the game,” Soucy said. “Part of that is the way they play defense and part of it is the way we attacked it. We got open looks both inside and out, and we’re not getting fouled on that. We play man-to-man and we’re aggressive, and most of our fouls came off rebounds.”

The Cavs trailed by 13 early in the third quarter, but both sides struggled to get anything going on offense until HB started to make a move with under four minutes to go in the frame. HB closed the third on a 12-2 run that was capped by a last-second 3 by Connor Walsh that made it 32-29 going into the fourth.

Walsh’s layup with 7:02 to play cut the lead to one, but the Cavs’ offense started to struggle again.

“We dug ourselves an 11-point hole and against a good team, that’s difficult to dig yourself out of,” Soucy said. “We did, we got it to one, and then we got sloppy with the ball. It’s unfortunate because we had a couple of opportunities to tie or take the lead.”

Bedford seemed to put the game away when a putback by Caparell made it a seven-point game, but HB answered with a 3 by Flaum. The Bulldogs went 6 for 10 from the line down the stretch, but missed enough that a 3 by Wilson with 23 seconds left made it a three-point game. But the Cavs missed two more 3s and were forced to foul on the rebounds.

“We hung tough,” Langlois said. “We’re happy about the win obviously.”