TAUNTON, Mass. – Taunton senior Tristan Herry can impact a game without scoring because of his ballhandling, playmaking ability, and defense, but that certainly doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of putting the ball in the basket.
Herry scored 10 of his season-high 23 points in the final quarter, hitting key free throws in the final moments to help the Tigers fend off a comeback attempt from visiting Franklin to secure a 70-61 win.
Taunton has one of the most dynamic offenses in the league this year with one of the most gifted scorers in senior Trent Santos, who scored a game-high 25 points in the win. But with Franklin’s defense zeroed in on the dynamic guard, the Tigers needed someone to step up.
When Franklin opened the final quarter with three free throws from sophomore Henry Digiorgio (15 points, four rebounds) to grab some momentum, Herry (six rebounds, three assists, three steals) came back down the other way and hit a jumper.
Digiorgio hit two more from the line to cut the deficit to just six, the closest the Panthers had been since trailing by five at halftime. But that’s when Herry used his vision to find Santos for a big three.
Franklin’s Ben Harvey muscled his way to the rim for two points to get the deficit down to seven, 53-46, with just over four minutes to go before Herry found classmate Faisal Mass (11 points) cutting to the rim for two points.
The Panthers scored on their third straight possession as senior Sean Vinson cleaned up his own miss, and then Franklin got a stop on defense but Taunton forced a turnover above the three-point line and Herry was first to pounce on it, hitting Mass on the break for two more.
The visitors refused to go quietly as Digiorgio drained a corner three to make it a seven-point game once again with just over two minutes left but Herry was calm against Franklin’s press, eventually drawing a foul and hitting both of his free throws.
After a big block from Mass down in the paint, Herry hit a contested jumper to put the hosts back up double digits with less than two minutes to go. He added four more free throws down the stretch to keep Taunton ahead for good.
“When he scores, it matters,” said Taunton head coach Charlie Dacey about Herry. “We had Jordan [Costa] step up the other night for us. Tristan is so selfless, he thinks of everyone else first. We’ve talked about it before and he really takes his role of being the point guard serious, he wants to move the ball around but we’ve talked about needing him to step up and him being a scoring point guard.”
It was a back-and-forth first half as the separation between two of the top teams in the state didn’t come until the third quarter.
Taunton carried a 25-20 lead into halftime, the advantage cut to five after a corner three from Franklin senior Will Tracey shortly before the buzzer.
After starting the game with a 9-0 surge, Taunton started the second with a 12-3 burst to create a double-digit advantage. Santos opened with a three off of a pass from Mass only for Vinson to answer in the first two minutes.
Mass went up and finished off a pass from Costa and Santos hit two from the line after the Tigers forced a turnover. Herry’s good defense forced a miss that ended up in two free throws from Costa down the other end and two possessions later, a steal from sophomore Troy Santos (7 points, 4 rebounds) led to a three from Herry, a 37-23 lead, and a timeout from Franklin.
Taunton’s lead peaked at 15 points after Matt Small hauled in an offensive board and hit Troy Santos in the corner for a three and a 40-25 lead.
Franklin’s offense got it going out of the timeout, scoring 12 points over the final three minutes, but Taunton nearly matched it to stay ahead.
A floater from Digiorgio, a traditional three-point play from Tracey, and a layup from sophomore Andrew O’Neill (18 points, five assists) sparked the run but also marked Franklin’s first two-point field goals of the game with just over two minutes left in the third quarter. Franklin went 0-for-6 from two-point range in the first half and missed their first three attempts in the second half.
Small, who came off the bench while Costa was in foul trouble, finished off a nice pass from Troy Santos for Taunton but Digiorgio answered with a triple. Mass and Herry hit from the free throw line late before Digiorgio hit a layup to make it 46-35 at the end of the third quarter.
“He doesn’t have to score, he just busts his butt,” Dacey said of Small, who had two points, eight rebounds, four assists, and a block off the bench. He does all the dirty work, that’s the kind of stuff we need from him. There’s enough guys out there that have to score points for us but he doesn’t have to to help us.
Coming off a tough shooting night at Mansfield on Friday night, Franklin found some rhythm early. After a couple of misses, the Panthers got all of their points in the opening eight minutes from deep. O’Neill hit three of his own and Justin Allen hit another. Franklin finished 11-for-29 from three-point range.
“Those guys have a lot of talent, there’s no question about it,” said Franklin coach CJ Neely. “They make you work really hard on the defensive end and put your defense to the test. Even if you try to shut one guy down, they have another. They ran some nice sets, they get the right guys the ball where they need to get it and Charlie and Matt have done a nice job getting really good players good looks.
“We’re a good team and they are a great team. We have to more steps to get to the level of the two teams we played this weekend. They’ve shown us a lot, we have a lot of guys working hard but we just have to take that next step. I think we got a little excited about the start we’ve had so this is a good wake up call and we’ll see what we’re made of over the course of the next stretch of games.”
Taunton boys basketball (6-0 Hockomock, 6-1 overall) will look to extend its three-game winning streak on Tuesday when it hosts Oliver Ames at 6:30. Franklin (4-2, 7-2) will try to snap its two-game skid when it returns home from a six-game road trip to host Foxboro on the same day.
