Frontier falls short of reaching Cage
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PITTSFIELD - The St. Joseph's boys basketball team twice let 15-point leads slip away in the second half, but still managed to pull out a 61-55 win over Frontier on Friday night in a Western Massachusetts Division 3 Tournament quarterfinal game.
The Crusaders' victory at the Boys and Girls Club of Pittsfield sets up an all-Berkshire semifinal next week between the Crusaders and Lee, which defeated Holyoke Catholic 74-59. The semifinal is at 5 p.m. Wednesday at the Curry Hicks Cage in Amherst.
If coach Paul Brindle's squad is to reach the championship game next Saturday, it will have to play good basketball for the entire game.
"At times our offense and defense clicked, but we didn't go for the kill," said Brindle. "In the tournament you only need to win by one point."
"All season we've had a hard time maintaining consistency," added junior forward Dylan Kelsey.
On the strength of a 10-0 run, St. Joe's opened up a 20-13 lead after the first quarter. But Frontier stormed back in the second frame, tying the score at 27 with 45 seconds left in the half, before sophomore center Mike McMahon scored off a rebound and senior guard Dan Joslyn hit a fast break basket to give St. Joe's a 31-27 halftime.
"Coach is always telling us to be more aggressive grabbing those rebounds and making our second-chance shots," said McMahon, who finished with 17 points.
Joslyn had a game-high 19 points, while junior forward Dylan Kelsey added 15.
"We couldn't stop them at all from scoring on putbacks and in transition," said Frontier coach Marty Sanderson. "They also did a better job of getting the loose balls."
St. Joe's consistency on offense improved to start the second half as McMahon, Joslyn and Kelsey combined for 12 points to build a 43-28 lead in the first 3:30 of the third quarter.
However, the Red Hawks cut the Crusaders' lead to 10, thanks to sophomore Dan Kieras coming off the bench and scoring seven straight points for Frontier. A pair of free throws by Joe Wiggins, though, gave St. Joe's a 51-39 lead heading into the fourth quarter.
The Crusaders reclaimed their 15-point lead early in the fourth at 55-40 as Kelsey drained his third 3-pointer of the night.
And that's when the St. Joe's offense practically shut down.
Frontier outscored the home team 15-6 the rest of the way, relying on the outside and free-throw shooting of forwards Matt Chamberlin and Kyle Bryant, who combined for 12 of the 15 points. Chamberlin had a team-high 17 points, while Bryant had 13 and sophomore guard Justin Mieczkowski added 11.
Despite the rally falling short, Sanderson said he was proud of his team.
"We worked hard and did a decent job of beating their full-court press defense," said Sanderson. "However, getting off to a slow start each half was tough to overcome."
