Pembroke boys basketball hands Hollis Brookline its first loss

HOLLIS - Matt Alosa knew his Pembroke Academy boys basketball team was going to have a hard time slowing down Hollis Brookline's backcourt duo of PJ Flaum and Connor Walsh.

Instead the Spartans focused on shutting down the rest of the Cavaliers, and on Tuesday night, it worked.

While Flaum and Walsh combined to score 36 points, only two other players scored for HB, and the Cavs dropped their first Division II game of the season, 61-51, to undefeated Pembroke.

Flaum had 20 points and Walsh added 16, but the rest of the Cavs scored just 15, as HB trailed by as many as 18 in the second half before closing the gap in the final minutes.

"We played defense," Alosa said. "The two guards had a good game and got some shots off. We expected that and we did a good job against everybody else and we controlled the boards.

"I think our goal defensively is to make the right guy for us to shoot and try to get the rebound and go. Between mixing up our press and the half-court defense, we're trying to get the ball out of the two guards' hands and make someone else do something. We did that a few times in a row and that got us the lead."

Patrick Welch scored 15 of his game-high 22 points in the second half, as Pembroke took advantage of a couple of defensive lapses by HB to break open a close game.

The Spartans led by three, 29-26, early in the third quarter when they went on a 9-1 run to go up by double digits for the first time. The Cavs cut the lead back to eight, but Pembroke led 43-32 at the end of three, and was up 56-38 with 1:40 left in the game. HB outscored Pembroke 13-5 to end the game.

"They're too gifted an offensive team that you can't break down," HB coach Mike Soucy said. "We had a couple where we helped off the wrong people, or we helped off the wrong side, our rotations should have come from the back side and they came from the ball side. It left a wide open shooter, and give them credit, they made their shots. That's why they're a very good team.

"I was proud of the effort. We were right there, our defense was holding strong for most of the game. Our goal was to hold them to under 60, and we didn't quite do that."

Pembroke (6-0) came into the game averaging 70 points a night, but just 25 at halftime. The problem for HB was that it had just 22.

"We really struggled offensively and we had a hard time with their 1-2-2 half court press," Soucy said. "We shouldn't have because we worked on it, but we did. We had trouble attacking their trapping 2-3 zone, which I didn't think we would, but we did. It's something we're going to learn from."

The low score was something different for the Spartans, but Alosa wasn't worried about whether his team would be able to score enough.

"We didn't have a great offensive night, we were pretty marginal," he said. "We don't focus on that, as long as we play defense, I wasn't worried about it because eventually shots would go down."

Rene Maher and Matt Persons both added 11 points for Pembroke and Dominic Timbas scored eight of his 10 points in the first half. HB (4-1) got eight points from Cole Gallant and seven from Logan Blake.