Tuesday night’s tilt between Mascenic and Wilton-Lyndeborough was the rare game where the result left both teams happy. WLC seemed to finally find their identity as a team that night, and Mascenic? Well, they won.
“We made the plays when we had to make the plays, and we came out on top,” said Vikings coach Jay Starr after the game, a 65-58 Mascenic victory. “I’ll take a W any way I can get them at this point.”
Mascenic came into the game as the top-scoring team in Division III, tied with Inter-Lakes at 64 ppg. Wilton-Lyndeborough knew they needed to slow down that Viking running game to be successful. However, that would mean a departure from coach Leo Gershgorin’s preseason plans for a run-and-gun Warriors team. The departure was successful, for the most part, and may be a sign of things to come.
“That was the first time we took a game plan from watching film and really really executed it,” Gershgorin said. “Why are we going to run when we have size? Why play to their advantage? Much of these other teams are much smaller, but they’ve got older guards, so they’ve got experienced guards, so why do that?
We’re going to slow it down, we’re going to pound it inside and we’re going to make teams beat us and defend that.”
That game plan meant a heavy dose of big men Trey Carrier and Sean McClure, who imposed their size and rebounding ability on the Vikings down low. Carrier would finish with 22 and exhibit more patience than he has in previous games.
“Today, he took what they gave him, he got rid of it when they got on him, and that’s what we’re trying to work towards,” Gershgorin said.
McClure did the dirty work Warrior fans have become accustomed to and finished with a game-high 28.
“They played really good,” Starr said. “The McClure kid played a great game. They executed really well, kind of slowed us down.”
The game was as tight as it gets, tied at 30-all at halftime. As most games do, it would come down to free throw shooting and execution down the stretch. Mascenic held the clear advantage in free throw shooting, going 19-20 from the line to Wilton-Lyndeborough’s 8-12 — a natural result of having two aggressive senior ballhandlers in Brett Stauffeneker (16 points, 4 assists, 7-8 FT) and Daimon Gibson (21 points, 8-8 from the line).
That experience would pay off as the game neared its conclusion. With five minutes left, two Gibson free throws would tie the game at 52; a Sam Stauffeneker (8 points) two and a three from the emerging DJ Turner (11 points) stretched the lead to five.
The Warriors wouldn’t recover, turning the ball over twice in the final minute as the Vikings ended the game on a 15-6 run.
“The difference between us and Mascenic right there was that they, under pressure, they handled it in the last three minutes,” Gershgorin said.
Still, playing close with one of the top teams in Division III should prime the Warriors for postseason play.
“I’ll take this,” Gershgorin said. “We need this. Blowing out Mount Royal all night? How is that going to help us in the playoffs with four minutes left to go in a tie game? That’s not going to help us. This will help us.”
On the Mascenic side, a win is a win, but coach Starr said he did consider it a bit of a “letdown” following last week’s two big games against Stevens and Kearsarge.
“Energy was through the roof Friday night even though we came up a little short there,” Starr said, “but I think we came out of it feeling pretty good, and we relaxed here tonight.” Nonetheless, the Vikings improved to 4-3, with a trip to Newport (1-3) on Friday. And, they got a taste of what teams will likely try to do to the Vikings come March — stop them from running.
“We do need to be able to grind it out a little bit,” Starr said. “Offensively I don’t think we’ll have a problem with that, but defensively we have got to slow the other teams down and get after it rebounding a little bit better.”
Wilton-Lyndeborough is now just 1-5, but theyhave two games against winless teams upcoming, with Nute (0-6) and Sunapee (0-4) sandwiched around a big showdown with Groveton (6-0).
The Warriors host Nute on Friday at 7 p.m., and it should be a good night for WLC fans. The girls take on Nute as well, at 5:30; then, the boys hope to pull out a win, and hope that Carrier, a senior, will eclipse the 1,000-point milestone with a big scoring output that night.