Pelham pulls away late to beat Conant in the D3 boys basketball final

MANCHESTER - The Pelham High School boys basketball team found itself in a familiar position in the fourth quarter of Saturday's Division III championship game.

Clinging to a 40-39 lead over No. 3 Conant, the top-seeded Pythons were looking to kill a little clock, just like in the semifinals against Campbell. But instead of the closing seconds of the game, there were still five minutes to go, and unlike the semifinal win, Pelham took matters into its own hands.

After running some time, Keith Brown hit a 3-pointer that put Pelham up four with just over four minutes to play. Moments later, the junior stole the ball, killing more time, and added another basket, and Pelham pulled away for a 51-42 victory at Southern New Hampshire University.

Brown finished with a game-high 20 points - 10 in each half - while Dylan Silvestri had 14 of his 16 points in the first half to help the Pythons (22-0) take the lead and maintain it into the second half.

"Dylan was unbelievable," Pelham coach Matt Regan said. "Without him, we dont get out to the start we got off to. He was just a man out there.

"That's why we tell him to stay out of foul trouble because those are the things he's able to do. He changes games just on effort. Then I thought Keith closed the game out. If you want to be known as the best player, you've got to close out the biggest game of the year, and he did that."

Conant coach Eric Saucier thought it was Brown's 3-pointer that finished his team off.

"We got it to within one and they held that ball for a while, and then Brown got open and got that 3," he said. "That was the difference right there. If he misses that and we get the ball down one, maybe we score, we get up, and the pressure is on them. That was a big shot by him."

Josh Degrenier led the Orioles (17-5) with 17 points, including the 3-pointer that made it a one-point game early in the fourth. Nathan Wheeler added nine points and Simeon Hodgson had seven as Conant opened the game trying to run with the Pythons.

It worked early on, as Conant jumped out to a 7-2 lead and forced Pelham to use a timeout with just 2:07 gone in the game.

"We called that timeout early, but that was more to settle our guys down and let them know that this pace is fine," Regan said. "That's how we normally play and I had no problem with that."

But after the timeout, Pelham went on a 7-0 run of its own to go up 9-7 with 3:52 left in the first quarter. Silvestri had six of those points and finished the first with 12 of Pelham's 18 points.

"We went right at them," Saucier said. "We knew if we defended we could stay in the game, and honestly, I thought the difference in the game was the first half. Dylan got those looks. We just fell asleep for a little while and I thought that was the difference. We made the adjustments and it didn't happen again (in the second half)."

Pelham led by as many as seven points in the first, with a 3-pointer by Ryan Rondeau (nine points) giving the Pythons a 30-23 lead they took into halftime. That lead went to eight points early in third, but Conant responded with a 7-0 run, making it a one-point game, 35-34, on a 3 by Degrenier with 1:48 left in the quarter.

But Rondeau answered that 3 just 22 seconds later to put Pelham back up four, and a Brown jump shot with under a minute to play in the third kept it a four-point game, 40-36, going into the fourth.

"Defensively, we stuck to our game plan," Saucier said. "We did good as far as Brown trying to get into the post. He got through a couple of times, but he's the player of the year, he's going to score."

After Degrenier scored to make it a one-point game, 40-39, with 5:59 to play, Pelham tried to slow the pace, and it nearly turned disastrous.

"I went through a brain fart for a minute, and then we ran a couple of good sets and they worked to perfection," Regan said. "The kids executed and set all the right screens and guys got to the right spots on the floor. Then they made the shots. That 3 off the double screen for Keith, that was his biggest shot of the year in my mind, that allowed us to exhale."

And win the program's first title since winning in Class I in 2006. The Pythons had made the semifinals in two of Regan's previous four years as head coach, including last year in Division II, and finally breaking through felt like a bit of a relief.

"It just validates everything we do," Regan said. "That's the word I'd use. When you lose in the semifinals two out of four years, you start to question yourself. Did I do the right things? This justifies what we've been doing and what we preach to our kids."