Tag: Dartmouth

Procaccini Lifts Foxboro to Quarterfinal Win

Foxboro boys basketball
Jason Procaccini scored 21 points and pulled down 10 rebounds as the Warriors pulled away late to beat Dartmouth. (Josh Perry/HockomockSports.com)

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FOXBORO, Mass. – With a little more than four minutes remaining in Friday night’s quarterfinal against Dartmouth, Foxboro coach Jon Gibbs called a timeout to try and settle his team down.

The Indians had cut a lead that was at one point as high as 18 down to just eight, so Gibbs reminded his team of the game plan on defense and told them to regroup and finish strong. The Warriors listened, allowing only two points from the line over the final four minutes.

“The wheels were coming off, we hit a patch of adversity, and it looked like maybe we weren’t handling it well,” said Gibbs.

“I just called a timeout to remind them that we’re up eight and we made a little adjustment to our press break. I said, let’s break the pressure and then lets take our time and have a good possession every time.”

Foxboro pulled away late, making 6-7 from the line, and finished off Dartmouth 58-40 to advance to the Div. 2 South semifinal. Senior Jason Procaccini led the way for the Warriors with 21 points and 10 rebounds and classmate Alex DuBrow scored 14, including 7-8 from the line in the fourth.

“It’s all about our defense,” Gibbs explained, “and that’s what we’ve said all year. I think we regrouped pretty well, kept our composure and down the stretch our seniors made big plays for us.”

Dartmouth coach Jeff Caron admitted after the game that his team was looking to keep the score low and for the first half the Indians defense was fulfilling that objective, limiting Foxboro to just 22 points. The only problem was that the Warriors held the visitors to only 14.

“The pace and the score was with us for a while but their defense really made things difficult for us on the offensive end,” said Caron.

Procaccini got off to a strong start with eight points in the opening half, including a three that extended the lead to nine at 21-12. He also added three of his team-high four assists in the first half, as most of the offense ran through him.

In the second half, Dartmouth got out of its zone and started to play man-to-man and tried to press in order to create more turnovers that could get the offense going. The switch also opened things up for the Foxboro offense and Procaccini took advantage with seven in the third, as the Warriors used a 12-2 run to break the game open.

He started the half with a spin to the bucket for two, followed by a three from Mark Clagg who added a pair of free throws. After Dartmouth scored two on a pair of technical free throws, DuBrow picked the pocket of the Indians point guard and laid it in and then Procaccini knocked down a jumper plus the foul.

“He’s jut so versatile,” said Gibbs of Procaccini. “He can shoot, he can drive at you, he can post, he can get offensive rebounds, he’s a nightmare in transition. He just has a knack for scoring the ball.”

The Warriors were letting emotions get the better of them and picked up a second technical in the quarter that Dartmouth used to try and stay in the game. Another Procaccini jumper off an offensive rebound and a couple free throws from DuBrow made it 41-23, Foxboro’s biggest lead of the game.

Dartmouth scored the final five of the third quarter, but the lead was still 13 heading to the fourth. The Indians chipped away behind a couple of baskets from leading scorer Matt Craig, who finished with 17 points but was made to work for every point by the defense of Joe Morrison.

“He’s a great player,” said Gibbs of Craig, “and we knew that he was going to look to take over the game. He had 17 points, but he certainly had to work for it. He made a lot of tough shots to get to that and obviously holding them to 40 points, our defense was the key.”

Procaccini tipped in his own missed layup to make it 46-36 but then Craig managed to squeeze down the lane for a layup that cut it back to eight. That would be the final basket scored by the Indians.

DuBrow went 5-6 from e line in the fourth and Procaccini wrapped up the win with a three that extended the lead back to 15 before Andrew Block added some gloss to the final with a three in the final minute.

“They’ve got a good point guard, they’ve got a good big, they have guys that can shoot the ball…you get down like that and start pressing in desperation mode in the third quarter you run out of gas,” said Caron.

“They were the better team tonight, no doubt about that, no excuses.”

Robby Lowey added four points and seven boards, Morrison chipped in with five points, and Jonathan Carnino pulled in nine rebounds for the Warriors.

It turned into a comfortable looking final score, but Gibbs said that this game would be a learning experience for his team, which picked up three technicals in the second half.

“The state tournament is a whole different atmosphere,” he explained.

“The environment is different, the pressure is different, the stakes are totally different so now having a game like this where we encountered a lot of adversity and at times didn’t handle it well gives us the chance to have a teachable moment, look at the film, talk about what happened and hopefully be better next time.”

Foxboro (18-4) will play No. 2 seed Whitman-Hanson at Durfee High at a time and date to be determined.

Josh Perry can be contacted at JoshPerry@hockomocksports.com and followed on Twitter at @Josh_Perry10.

Milestone Delayed But Attleboro Avoids Trap

Attleboro girls basketball
Emily Houle scored 17 points on Friday afternoon leaving her four points shy of 1,000 heading into Monday’s game with Mansfield. (Josh Perry/HockomockSports.com)

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ATTLEBORO, Mass. – The crowd was packed in behind and across from the Attleboro bench, with balloons, signs, and more celebrating senior guard Emily Houle and her quest to become the first female to score 1,000 career points for Attleboro since Sarah Wright in 1999, which she needed 21 to attain on Friday afternoon in her final home game of the regular season.

Houle scored 17, all in the second half, so the full celebration will have to wait until Attleboro’s game at Mansfield on Monday night, but the Bombardiers had enough in reserve to avoid the trap of facing non-league Dartmouth after a week off and three days before the game that will decide the Kelley-Rex title.

Attleboro struggled early on against Dartmouth’s triangle-and-two defense but managed to pull out a 48-36 victory on an afternoon that ended with very little attention being paid to the final score.

The Indians, playing less than 24 hours after a loss at Mansfield on Thursday night, started the game with Cali Andrade doing her best to deny Houle the ball. With the Bombardiers trying to get Houle the ball as often as possible to help her get to the milestone, Attleboro’s offense bogged down in the first quarter and the top scoring team in the Hock was held to just six points.

“We do some stuff on it but we haven’t seen enough of it,” said Attleboro coach Rick Patch about the triangle and two defense. “I think with the not playing for a week, the sideshow of the thousand and the electricity in the air, the kids were tight at the beginning.”

Senior guard Fatima McDonald (eight points) was Attleboro’s lone source of offense, scoring all six points in the first, including a drive to the hoop and a three. In the second, sophomore Sam Pierce chipped in with four of her 10 points and Grace Mayer and Mish Logie each contributed layups.

At halftime, the Bombardiers trailed 17-14 and needed to find an answer to all of the attention being put on Houle and Sarah Deyo (seven blocks, 10 rebounds).

“I thought if we’re not careful this could get away because a similar thing happened at Stoughton when we were down a bunch of players,” said Patch.

“I was disappointed in our defensive rebounding…because that’s effort, that’s discipline and regardless of everything else that’s going on we just weren’t able to do that.”

In the third quarter, the Bombardiers clamped down on defense. Kelsey Shurtleff (team-high 12 points) knocked down a pair of threes but the Indians were no longer getting anything inside and Attleboro took control of the glass.

Patch explained, “I think the person that started that fire was Sam Pierce. She’s that link, when she plays well then  we’re at another level. She came out for five minutes and played very well and it kind of spread [the lead].”

A McDonald layup and a Deyo putback pulled Attleboro within one at 19-18, then Pierce assisted on a Logie three that once again cut the lead to one. In transition Houle finally got on the board with a layup that gave Attleboro its first lead since it was 2-0. Pierce added to it with a basket on an inbound and a steal and layup.

Houle (11 rebounds) tacked on a three off a missed Dartmouth free throw and then another bucket in transition that had the crowd on its feet and pushed the Attleboro lead to 34-25 heading to the fourth.

Dartmouth scored the first four points of the final quarter to hang around, but Attleboro broke the game open with an 11-0 run, including seven points from Houle that put her at 14 for the night and needing seven points in three minutes to reach 1,000.

With Attleboro leading by 16 at 45-29, the focus of both benches turned to the impending milestone.

“In the fourth quarter, when I saw we were up 16, I told her that everything is going through you,” said Patch. “I said, we’ve got the game, let’s just get her the ball.”

The Indians turned to a four corners offense in the closing minutes, clearly with no intention of trying to mount a comeback and purely interested in limiting Attleboro’s offensive possessions. Meanwhile, the Bombardiers were fouling intentionally to put the Indians on the line so they could then get the ball back.

Now the focus will turn to Monday night and the matchup with Mansfield that will determine the league title. The boys’ game against the Hornets has been moved up to 5 p.m., while the girls’ start was pushed back to 7:15 to allow both fanbases to see the league finale (and cheer Houle when she reaches 1,000).

“I think at this point with her being so close…she’s going to get it,” said Patch. “We’re just going to play the game. I’m glad that we got it close enough that it won’t be a sideshow on Monday; it will just be Mansfield and Attleboro going at it for the championship.”

Josh Perry can be contacted at JoshPerry@hockomocksports.com and followed on Twitter at @Josh_Perry10.

Bombardiers Fall Into Old League Rival’s ‘Trap’

Harry Lancaster
Attleboro’s Harry Lancaster (5) is denied by Dartmouth goalie Nathan Morgado in the second half of Saturday’s game. (Josh Perry/HockomockSports.com)

By Josh Perry, Managing Editor

ATTLEBORO, Mass. – It was like watching a replay, over and over again. Every time the Bombardiers played the ball over the top in the first half, the whistle would blow and the referee’s arm would get raised and the attack would be cut short by an offsides call.

Dartmouth and Attleboro are old rivals from the EAC and the Old Colony League, but the Indians sprung a surprise on the Bombardiers on Saturday morning at Tozier-Cassidy Field by playing a high line that was practically in the opposition half with the keeper out near the 30 yard line.

The line worked wonders as Attleboro was called offsides 14 times, according to head coach Peter Pereira, and it felt like much more. Nikolas George scored 14 minutes into the game and it held up to hand Dartmouth the 1-0 non-league win.

“They won all the 50-50 challenges and when you win those then you’ll win the game,” said Pereira. “They got a cheapy goal but a goal is a goal and they created it. They’re a decent team.”

Dartmouth took 13 minutes to create the first chance when Nathaniel Fernandes hit a shot on the half-volley that forced Attleboro keeper Tyler Stowe into a diving save. A minute later, the Indians had the opener.

George got behind the Attleboro back four down the left channel and took the ball around the sliding Stowe only to have his shot blocked on the line by Dante Arcese. Rather than let the ball go out for a corner, and ignoring the yells of Dartmouth coach Josh Silva, George settled the rebound, dribbled past a scrambling defender, and finished past Stowe at the near post.

It was a scrappy goal and came out of nothing, but it sparked the Indians into life and they could have put the game away before the break but for Stowe, who made six of his eight saves in the first 40 minutes.

He stopped Anthony Neves from close range when the midfielder got to a poor clearance and then again when Neves created space for a left-footed shot that seemed destined for the bottom corner. In the final seconds of the half, he was strong to stop an Isaac Sequeira shot at the near post.

“He’s been making big saves and even saves that don’t look so big become important,” explained Pereira. “He’s doing a really good job for us. The more he plays, the better he gets.”

Pereira also credited his entire back four (Zach White, Ryan Kearney, Max Bohannon, and Arcese) for its growth since allowing five goals in the season opener against Foxboro.

Attleboro struggled to angle or delay its runs in behind the defense, but there were a couple of chances for the Bombardiers.

Harry Lancaster, who was moved up front to try and spark the Attleboro attack, slipped through the right channel but could not get his chip high enough to elude keeper Nathan Morgado. Two minutes before the break, Ahijah Joseph had a go from near midfield but Morgado again was able to back pedal and make a comfortable save.

“When you’e anxious out there…we had 14 of them and if you cut that in half that’s seven more chances to go to goal,” said Pereira.

Pereira let his team know about his frustrations with how the game went in the opening 40 minutes and the halftime team talk seemed to work as Attleboro played much better in the second half, although clear chances were still at a premium.

Lancaster had the best chance when he was sprung by a through ball from midfielder Junior Coca but Morgado raced out to make a slide tackle near the 30 yard line and prevent a shot on goal.

Stowe also had to be sharp to stop shots from Fernandes and Josh Sousa and keep it a one-goal game. Joseph had a shot on target in the 66th minute from the edge of the box, but again Mrogado was in position to make the stop.

It would be the last chance Attleboro would create. Zach Rodrigues, Jack Flynn, and Lancaster were also able to spring the offsides trap a few times but either the pass was too heavy or the touches forced the Bombardiers wide.

“The second half we tried to push people up and it just didn’t happen,” concluded Pereira. “This will hopefully carry over to Tuesday’s game against a league match that is important.”

“We’re still making progress; we’re still getting better. We played better in the second half and if we can do that every game by the end of the season we’ll be playing our best.”

Attleboro (2-4-1) will host league-leading Mansfield on Tuesday night.

Josh Perry can be contacted at JoshPerry@hockomocksports.com and followed on Twitter at @Josh_Perry10.