Hollis Brookline wraps up undefeated season with win over Pelham in D2 boys basketball final

DURHAM – There was no doubt for the Hollis Brookline High School boys basketball about the amount of physicality it would have to endure – and match – if the Cavaliers wanted to finish off their season undefeated in Sunday’s Division II championship game against Pelham.

HB brought the fight against the Pythons and it took all the way until the end to finally put them away.

After taking the lead midway through the fourth quarter, top-seeded HB held off No. 2 Pelham down the stretch to finish the season with a 42-37 victory inside the University of New Hampshire’s Lundholm Gymnasium.

The win gave HB (21-0) its first championship since a win over Oyster River in the 2018 D2 title game.

“This is a huge relief for sure, we’ve been talking about this for three years,” HB coach Ryan Kelley said. “We knew that we had basketball players and that if we put in the work for three years that this could be the year that gave us the best opportunity for it."

HB senior Alton Williams showed exactly why he was named the D2 Player of the Year by dominating the paint with 14 points and 15 rebounds and the Cavs ended up with a 45-30 rebounding advantage.

Sophomore Renzo Bergskaug added 13 points for HB.

“It’s surreal. We’ve been working to get here for a really long time and it feels good to get it done,” Williams said. “All this work has paid off and this is proof of it and I’m going to enjoy it as long as I can.”

The teams were tied 31-31 entering the fourth quarter when a drive by Brady O’Connor (11 points) gave Pelham a lead, before Dylan Kelley countered. Williams then took a rebound and went coast-to-coast to give HB a 38-35 lead with three minutes remaining.

After O’Connor closed the deficit to 38-37, the Cavaliers locked down defensively and Williams delivered a huge block on a drive by O’Connor. Bergskaug then sank a pair of free throws to give HB a 40-37 lead with 41.6 seconds remaining.

Pelham (16-5) was given an opportunity to tie the game when HB’s James Arthur went down with a leg cramp and threw the ball away. Brady Hegan took the ball for Pelham out of a timeout but stepped out of bounds while Williams defended him with 9.7 seconds remaining.

Williams then iced the game by sinking a pair of free throws.

“The pressure kind of calmed me down, I like the pressure. Pressure is a privilege, coach says that a lot and I think that helped us,” Williams said. “We just played straight up (defensively) at the end. We were up and we wanted to play defense without fouling."

Trailing 16-12 through one quarter, HB’s defense nearly pitched a shutout in the second quarter while ripping off an 11-0 run that was capped off by a drive from Arthur. Hegan scored Pelham's only points of the quarter on a 3-pointer with 45 seconds remaining, as HB had a 23-19 halftime lead.

“We have focused on the defensive end and we have so many amazing athletes,” Ryan Kelley said. “We’re not as physical, but we're probably more pests than others. To hold Pelham to 37 is a huge deal.”

Pelham was making its third championship game appearance in four years. The Pythons won the title in 2023 and 2024 before losing in last year’s semifinals.

“Sometimes the ball doesn’t bounce your way and they made more plays than we did. All you want is an opportunity at the end,” Pelham coach Joe Morin said. “We knew we had to limit their second-chance points and when we did that we played pretty well. When they were able to get out on the break they were able to score those second-chance points.”