Hollis Brookline boys basketball muscles its way past Oyster River to D2 title

DURHAM - The Oyster River High School boys basketball team went into Saturday's Division II championship game looking for a way to slow down Matt Simco.

Unfortunately for the Bobcats, there was no way to slow down the Hollis Brookline senior.

Simco found ways to beat the double teams, whether it was getting to the basket or finding the open teammate, and when a shot went up, more often than not he came down with the miss, helping the No. 1 Cavaliers to a 56-40 win over No. 7 Oyster River. The win is HB's first title since winning Class I in 2005.

The Cavs led from start to finish, as HB controlled the boards, outrebounding Oyster River 50-19, while scoring 30 points in the paint and getting 18 second-chance points.

"The whole year, we’ve been bigger than everybody else, so we knew we had to rebound to win," Simco said. "At halftime, we didn’t think we were doing it well enough. In the second half, we buckled down and got every one we could."

Simco finished with 17 points and grabbed a game-high 19 rebounds, including eight offensive boards, three of which he turned into points in the third quarter when HB (19-2) was trying to hold off a charge by Oyster River. Grant Snyder added 12 points, going 10 of 10 at the free throw line, and Jonathan Brackett and Scott VanCoughnett each had nine points.

"We stuck to our game plan," HB coach Cole Etten said. "At halftime, we had a lead, but Oyster River wouldn’t go away. We had to come in and earn our win. I thought we did a great job beating the pressure. We were able to get looks, but we also controlled the pace when we didn’t have a look."

The Bobcats (15-7) wanted to pick up the pace, but after falling behind early on, Oyster River was unable to get into transition and didn't use its press until the second half.

"We got behind and then we had to get good possessions ourselves offensively," Oyster River coach Lorne Lucas said. "I thought they handled it well. (Brackett) handled the press really well and attacked it. I thought we got a few turnovers off it. They did an excellent job executing against the press when we ran it."

Joe Morrell led all scorers with 20 points, 14 of which came in the second half, and Brennen Oxford added 11 points, but only two other players scored for the Bobcats.

While Lucas felt his team played well defensively early - HB had just eight points in the first half - the Bobcats struggled to contain Simco as the game progressed.

"Our initial defense was outstanding and unfortunately we couldn’t come up with that ball," the coach said. "Simco is a force. We talked about it for days. We’ve got to stop Simco, and we didn’t. What was happening at times, too, the ball would go away, and (guys) were thinking help and the ball would go up and they’d try to recover. The ball would go to Simco and it was too late. He’s too fast and he’s too strong."

HB led the entire way, taking a 4-0 lead and holding on to go up 8-3 at the end of the first quarter. The Cavs continued to plug away in the second, taking a 24-9 lead on a putback by Simco with 1:12 remaining until halftime.

But like the end of the first half in HB's semifinal win over Merrimack Valley, Oyster River got a basket from Kyle Landrigan, followed by a pair of free throws from Oxford with one second left, to cut the lead to 24-13 at the break.

The Cavs got the lead back to 13 points early in the third, but a 13-7 run by the Bobcats cut the lead to seven, 35-28, late in the quarter. A jumper by Oxford made it 37-30 with time running out in the quarter, but a tip-in by Simco at the buzzer got the lead to nine for HB.

"I knew it was ours when Matt got that tip-in that he really shouldn’t have got," HB senior Matt Dowling said. "He’s a beast. He knows how to come out for big games."

HB carried that momentum into the fourth, opening the quarter on a 7-2 run to get the lead up to 14 points, and the Cavs went 15 of 18 from the line in the final quarter to put the game away.

"We worked on competing and being a team and that was the biggest thing," Etten said. "We worked all year long on the things that make us successful. We’ve got to continue to do those things and I thought the guys did a great job."