SPRINGFIELD - Jim Matuszko has been calling his Amherst Regional boys basketball players "road warriors" for much of the season.

On Tuesday, the Hurricanes celebrated yet another victory on another team's home court, knocking off Putnam 59-48 in the first round of the Western Massachusetts Division 1 Tournament.

"We love playing on the road. We love playing at home, too, but we've had a lot of success on the road lately," said senior Sean Cunningham, who scored a team-high 14 points in the victory. "This is basically like a home game for us."

Ben Brassord finished with 10 points, while Basil Stewart added nine.

After starting the year 4-8, No. 9 Amherst (12-9) won for the eighth time in its last nine games and has won nine in a row on the road.

"From the beginning, we thought we could compete with anybody," Stewart said. "Now we know we definitely can."

The Hurricanes advance to play at rival and top-seeded Northampton (16-4) in the quarterfinals at 7 p.m. Friday.

"We definitely know them," Stewart said. "We've been playing against them since we were little, so it's a familiar matchup. It's going to be a good game. We've got to stop (Northampton seniors) Ellis (Cooper) and Jesse (Coulon), but they have great role players, too."

The teams split the regular season series with the road team winning each time.

"We need to prepared for a lot. We've been in playoff mode for a while," Matuszko said. "This was a game that we wanted. We wanted to be in their bracket when the seeds came out. It'll be a great high school game, win or lose."

In Tuesday's game, No. 8 Putnam (11-10) came out shooting well from the outside and led 24-17 with 4 minutes, 54 seconds left in the second quarter.

The Hurricanes switched from man-to-man defense to a zone and immediately slowed down the Beaver offense.

"We just tried to stay calm. We switched to a zone because the man wasn't really working for us," Cunningham said. "We switched that up and started closing out on shooters and that made a big difference."

Amherst finished the half with a 13-3 run to take a 30-27 lead into halftime.

Mike Jeneralczuk, who scored eight points and was key off the bench for the Hurricanes, and Stewart each made two baskets during the run to even the score at 27-27 before an NBA-range 3-pointer by Charles White (eight points) gave them the lead.

"We switched to a zone defense and mixed it up a little bit," Matuszko said. "I think (Putnam) had some trouble with that. We couldn't stay with them in man, we were too slow, and they were kicking out for wide-open 3s. We mixed it up and confused them enough to get a lead."

The Hurricanes' stifling defense continued into the third quarter, as they allowed just six points over the eight-minute frame and pushed their lead to 43-33.

Putnam quickly got the deficit back to six early in the fourth, but Jose Allen knocked down a floater in the lane and the teams traded baskets until Stewart (nine points) put back his own miss with 2:20 remaining to get the lead back to 10 and ice the contest.

That set up the matchup with the Blue Devils who had a bye to the quarterfinals.

"Northampton is our rival, so it's always fun to play them," Cunningham said. "We're just going to try to keep it rolling and see what happens."

Jim Pignatiello can be reached at jpignatiello@gazettenet.com.