The Monadnock Huskies didn’t quite look like a top-five team when they visited Mascenic last night, doing all they could to help the home team pick up the win. The Vikings were happy to oblige.
Before the varsity game had even started, Monadnock dug themselves into a hole. A Husky dunked the ball during warmups, violating a little-known and not oft-enforced NHIAA rule, and Daimon Gibson started the game by hitting two free throws on an otherwise empty court.
It didn’t get much better from there for Monadnock. The Huskies couldn’t stop Sammy Stauffeneker, as the freshman guard scored a game-high 21 points, slicing and dicing his way to the rim and nailing a pair of threes.
Seniors Daimon Gibson and Brett Stauffeneker added ten apiece, the latter also making four blocks. Drew Rines put in eight first-half points and swiped a couple steals, and the Vikings were out to a comfortable 16-point halftime lead. Mascenic entered the locker room as Monadnock coach Jim Hill stayed on the court and berated the officials.
In the second half, things got even weirder. Monadnock’s JT Cloutier began attacking the rim, getting to the line several times on his way to a team-high 20. The rest of the Huskies, however, were nowhere to be seen. Monadnock’s usual high-scorer, JoJo Minson, scored just a pair of free throws in the third quarter before inexplicably exiting the game and sitting the remainder of the second half. All the Husky starters, save Cloutier, soon joined him, and the rest of the game saw just Cloutier and the bench on the court.
After all that, Monadnock somehow cut Mascenic’s 20-point lead down to ten, thanks to an explosion of bench scoring. But the Husky starters could only sit and watch as DJ Turner (11 points) and Gibson finished out the game for a 75-62 Viking win.