A long time coming: Souhegan basketball savors win over rival Milford

AMHERST – Mike Heaney stopped in the lobby outside the Souhegan High School gym before Tuesday’s boys basketball game against Milford to have a chat with Bill Dod.

The current Souhegan coach asked the former Souhegan athletic director if he could remember who was the coach of the boys team the last time it defeated its archrival in a league game. Dod laughed and guessed they might be the only two people who knew the answer.

Before the game, the answer to that question was Dod. After game, the answer is Heaney.

Souhegan broke open a one-point game late in the third quarter and held on for a 60-44 win, the first time the Sabers had defeated Milford in a game that counted since late February of 2006. Souhegan also defeated Milford in the Chick-fil-A Holiday Basketball Tournament on Dec. 28, but that game doesn’t count toward the Division II standings.

New Hampshire high school basketball fans will remember that was the first of three games that Dod served as Souhegan’s interim coach after Dave Bridgman stepped down the day before. Dod was the third person to lead the team that season, and Milford had lost only two games – both to eventual-champion Pelham – up to that point.

The Sabers lost in the first round of the playoffs that year, and suffered through two seasons with a combined four wins before Heaney took over for the 2008-09 season.

“That’s tough for me as a basketball guy,” said Heaney, who was the junior varsity coach in 2006. “That’s how I look at it, that Bill was the interim coach the last time we got one (against Milford).”

Souhegan (3-0 in Division II) did so thanks to the play of Brandon Len. The junior point guard led all scorers with 22 points, including 11 during a stretch in the second half that helped the Sabers retake control of the game.

Back-to-back layups by Jarad Asselin pulled Milford (2-1) within one-point, 30-29, with two minutes left in the third quarter. Souhegan’s Shaun McKenna, playing in his first game of the season after appendicitis kept him out for three weeks, made two free throws and Len found an opening in Milford’s zone for a 3-pointer.

The Spartans turned the ball over on their next two possessions, leading to a layup by Tyler Ford and another 3 by Len to make it 40-29 Souhegan at the end of the third.

Zack Simmonds hit two free throws to open the fourth, and after a foul and a technical on Milford’s Richie Moore, Len made two of four free throws for a 44-29 lead.

And if that wasn’t enough, Len added two acrobatic layups to complete an 18-0 run by Souhegan.

“Circus shots,” Heaney said. “It’s funny, as a coach, you’d love to rip him for taking ill-advised shots, but, my dad was a coach for a long time and he used to say if the man is putting points on the board, how can you get upset. That’s Brandon. If you take that away from him, it puts handcuffs on him and we don’t want to do that.”

Milford coach Dan Murray was more frustrated seeing Len hit the 3s than the layups.

“We were trying to take the ball out of his hands,” Murray said. “We tried to mix it up (on defense), but we only gave up 19 points so at halftime, so we stayed with (the zone). The back guy fell asleep a couple of times on Len on some 3s.”

Jared Lakin kept things from getting out of hand down the stretch, hitting three of his six 3-pointers in a two-minute stretch, the last of which made it a 12-point game with 2:58 to play. Lakin finished with 18 points, all of which came from behind the arc.

The final margin was closer than when the teams met in the holiday tournament, and Murray was encouraged by some of the things he saw.

“We played hard, we played with desire, but we didn’t play smart,” he said. “A couple of times, we went haywire and got caught up in the moment.”

Heaney wasn’t thrilled with the way his team played, but he knows that the Sabers will learn from it, as he has himself.

“I think four years ago, I would have ripped them (at halftime) for really playing poorly, because I thought they were,” Heaney said of Souhegan’s 19-15 lead at the break. “I think you’re happy every time you win. I’m not happy how we’re playing. Sloppy at times, immature at times. What I told them in the locker room was that it’s just the third win. We haven’t beaten them in a long time, but it’s more about getting that third win.”

The teams will meet again in Milford on Feb. 3.