Oliver Ames Downs Canton In Defensive Struggle

 
 
 NORTH EASTON, Mass. — First-year Canton head coach Eric MacKinnon didn’t have many complaints about his team’s defensive performance, holding OA under 50 points.

But neither did first-year Oliver Ames head coach Oliver Vil, whose squad was equally as good on the defensive side, leading to a 46-36 win for the Tigers and a season sweep of the Bulldogs.

Despite being held to just four points over the final eight minutes of play, the Tigers didn’t surrender a field goal in the fourth quarter, holding Canton to just six points, all from the free throw line.

Click here for a photo gallery from this game.

“The second half wasn’t our strong suit on the offense end, had a lot of turnovers but the kids grinded it out which was great to see, defensively we worked really hard,” Vil said. “With the Hock, every night is a battle and I think the guys are ready mentally for it. Now we just have to clean up a lot of mental mistakes.”

Canton cut the deficit to eight after back-to-back threes from Matt Chafin (from Lanse Dorcelus) and Nate Mei (from Conor Hunter) and looked to have the momentum going into the break, but a late turnover led to a three-pointer from OA’s Zach Tagliamonte (OA’s only three of the game) just before the buzzer, and the Tigers carried a 31-20 lead into the second half.

“We’ve been really happy with our defense the last four or five games…. but we just can’t score, we can’t make shots when we’re getting them,” MacKinnon said. “And then we’re not getting a ton of good shots. We’re having a tough time getting to the rim.

“We were making more [three-pointers] earlier in the year, so we’re trying to have more balance with getting to the rim, throwing it into the post but we’re just not doing a great job of it. So it just feels like a lot of possessions are flat.”

The Bulldogs once again made a game of it with a 9-2 burst in the third quarter. An early bucket from OA’s CJ Williams extended the hosts’ advantage to 33-20 but Dillon Nguyen converted a tough shot down low, Mei (13 points) converted a turnover into two and then scored again off a nice handoff from Hunter (nine points, eight rebounds, three assists, three blocks).

Tagliamonte answered for OA but Canton came back right away with its fifth three of the game when Mei returned the favor to Hunter, cutting it to six at 35-29.

But that would be the closest the Bulldogs got the rest of the way, and the visitors didn’t hit another triple for the remainder of the game.

Jake Grimaldi hit two free throws, and then found Tagliamonte for a tough two. Sophomore Jefferson Smock came up with a big block on one end and then finished through contact on the other to give OA a 42-30 lead going into the fourth.

Points were hard to come by in the fourth, with Dorcelus and Mei combining for three free throws to cut the deficit to single digits. Drew Baxter made a tough shot after a big rebound from CJ Santos, but both teams went scoreless after that for nearly four minutes.

OA got its second bucket of the quarter when Dan Reilly found Tagliamonte for two to make it 46-35 with just under a minute to go.

Tagliamonte led the way with 13 points, but with defenses zoning on the junior who is among the top scorers in the Hockomock League, Vil was pleased to see other names get it going offensively.

Click here for a photo gallery from this game.

Baxter finished with 10 points and eight rebounds, Grimaldi had nine points and four boards, and both Santos (four rebounds, four assists) and Williams (seven rebounds) had five points apiece.

“With the style we play, it can be anybody that steps up on any given night,” Vil said. “We’ve been fortunate with Zach this year, he’s a sniper that can really pull from anywhere and he’s very good in transition. But he kind of came out of nowhere, a lot of teams are starting to focus on him so we’re starting to see some other guys start to flourish around him which is what we need.”

Oliver Ames boys basketball (6-6 Hockomock, 7-9 overall) is on the road on Tuesday with a big clash at rival Sharon. Canton (4-8, 5-9) returns home to host rival Stoughton on the same night.