Mascenic and ConVal are separated by just about 15 miles, but they don’t face off very often on the basketball court. Sure, they’ll play each other in summer league games, but a meaningful matchup? It’s rare. The two evenly matched boys’ basketball teams took part in an interdivisional contest Monday night that showed signs of a nice future rivalry to come.
Mascenic came in riding high after a 40-point blowout of Hillsboro-Deering, while the Cougars were still stinging after giving away a win in their season opener against Kingswood.
Both teams had their fingers on the trigger early, launching three after three, as ConVal seniors Griffin Werth and Liam Baldwin traded shots with Mascenic’s Daimon Gibson and Brett and Sam Stauffeneker.
“We were in a shootout with them which is not going to favor our side,” said ConVal head coach Kevin Proctor. “We don’t want to get in a three-point shootout with [Mascenic], because they shoot the lights out. And they shot the lights out. They were phenomenal.”
Indeed, the Vikings finished 12-28 from behind the arc, a 43 percent clip.
It was tight through two quarters, with Mascenic frosh Trey Shaw’s last-minute three pushing the Viking lead to 41-35 at the half. As the second half began, Mascenic would then get a heavy dose of scoring from the Stauffeneker brothers, who combined for seven quick points to extend the lead to 13 before Baldwin ended the run with a bucket.
Baldwin (21 points) and Werth (26 points) scored consistently from inside and outside all game, but as the Cougars clawed back into the game, it was senior guard Cam Buffum who provided the spark, scoring all 17 of his points in the second half, with three three-pointers. Buffum’s three at the start of the fourth quarter gave ConVal a lead at 60-58; after a Tim Burgess jumper, Buffum hit another three to put ConVal up seven.
Just as Buffum started turning it on, the Mascenic supporting cast disappeared. In fact, aside from a DJ Turner free throw, all of Mascenic’s fourth quarter points came from co-captains Gibson and Brett Stauffeneker, who each finished with a game-high 29 points.
That duo was nearly enough for Mascenic, as a three from Gibson and a tough two from Brett tied the game back up — the last thing Proctor and the Cougars wanted to see, after their well-documented struggles closing out games.
“They kind of felt it, that pressure,” Proctor said. However, with a fourth-quarter loss already under their belts, the Cougars responded.
“I think the fact that we had that [Kingswood] game helped a lot,” Proctor said. “Experience is worth more than most things.”
A Werth and-one with two minutes left got ConVal the lead back, and they would never relinquish it, winning 88-80. It was a big step for the Cougars, but Proctor saw more work to be done.
“Even though that is a very good offensive team in Mascenic, this our second game where we’ve let up 80 points or more,” he said. “And that’s not a sustainable strategy defensively.”
ConVal (1-1) hosts Monadnock (2-1) today at 6:30 p.m. and then plays Keene in the KSC holiday tournament Monday at 8:30 p.m.
Mascenic (3-1) is in action at that tournament Monday at 2:30 p.m., when they play Coe-Brown.