Exeter boys basketball beats Salem to win D1 title, finish season undefeated (video)

DURHAM – Jeff Holmes decided to take a chance at halftime of Saturday’s Division I championship game.

With the Exeter High School boys basketball team leading Salem by four points at the break, the Blue Hawks coach opted to start the third quarter with a smaller lineup.

The rationale was that the change would allow Exeter to spread the floor and have an easier time getting to the basket. The unexpected benefit was what it did at the other end of the floor.

With the top-seeded Blue Hawks putting up points on one end, No. 2 Salem struggled to get into a rhythm and started forcing its offense to try to keep up. Instead, the Blue Devils scored just 11 points in the second half, as Exeter rolled its way to a 53-30 win in the final at Lundholm Gymnasium at the University of New Hampshire.

“Second half, we made an adjustment, we gambled a little bit and went small, and I think it helped us move the ball a little better and opened the lanes for driving, stuff like that,” Holmes, the Exeter coach, said. “We wanted to get up in them and not give them easy jump shots. We have good defenders. All our guys can defend and they are tough on perimeter defense and ballhandlers.”

Salem (19-3) shot 4 of 29 from the field in the second half after shooting 50 percent in the second quarter to erase an early 10-point deficit. Exeter (21-0) finished with a 35-31 edge on the boards, including grabbing 21 defensive rebounds in the second half.

“I think we got away from what we’ve done all year offensively,” Salem coach Rob McLaughlin said. “They took some charges early that kind of got in our head. That messes with you. We’re usually the team that does that. And I thought our shot selection was questionable. We started more one-on-one stuff, which hasn’t been us all year.”

Kevin Henry scored 10 of his game-high 18 points for Exeter in the second half and also had 12 rebounds, while Josh Morissette (seven boards) and Ryan Grijalva each had 11 points. Cam Clark chipped in with seven points, six rebounds and four steals.

Salem got nine points and 17 rebounds from Ben Laycock while Zack Caraballo had seven points before fouling out in the fourth quarter. Kyle Poulin had just four points after picking up two fouls in the first minute of the game.

With the senior on the Salem bench for most of the first quarter, Exeter opened the game with a 9-0 run and led 11-1 with 4:47 left in the opening frame.

A jumper by Henry to open the second quarter made it 16-5, and McLaughlin opted to put Poulin back in the game. The move sparked Salem’s offense, as the Blue Devils responded with an 11-0 run, tying the game at 16 on a 3-pointer by Jared Burns.

“I thought it was key that we came out early and pressed them and we got a lead,” Holmes said. “That was big. They were going to go on a run, and when they went on their run, they tied the score, they didn’t go ahead.”

Exeter stopped the run with a 3 from Clark, but Caraballo answered at the other end to tie it up at 19. Two free throws each from Max Rose and Henry gave the Blue Hawks a 23-19 lead at the break.

“I was thrilled coming into halftime,” McLaughlin said. “Kyle picked up two fouls and he’s been one of our glue guys all year. We run through him. The second quarter, I thought we played great and we were able to capitalize.

“If you told me that Kyle was going to be on the bench for most of the first half and we’d be down by four at halftime, I would have taken it.”

But any momentum Salem picked up was gone at the start of the third quarter, as the Blue Devils went scoreless for the first 3:36. Exeter was able to extend its lead to 29-19 and was still up 10 points at the end of the quarter.

A basket by Trevor DeMinico got the lead down to eight points early in the fourth, but the Blue Hawks went on a 12-0 run to go up 45-25.

“I thought their defense was excellent,” McLaughlin said. “We didn’t get any real clean looks. Of the 29 shots (in the second half), there weren’t many clean ones, and the charges they took, I think set a tone.

“We got hesitant going to the basket and started settling for shots instead of attacking. If you’re not shooting well, you start pressing a little bit, and that adds to that. You start panicking a little bit and it goes the way it went.”

The championship win wraps up an undefeated season for Exeter and give the Blue Hawks’ their first title since winning the Class I title in 1977.