Pembroke boys basketball holds off Portsmouth to win second straight D2 title

DURHAM - The Pembroke Academy boys basketball team found out something important when it lost during the regular season to Portsmouth.

The Clippers' box-and-one defense had shut down Pat Welch, forcing the Spartans to try other options and the result was the end of Pembroke's 31-game winning streak.

On Saturday, in the Division II championship game, the Spartans were ready for that look and handled it much better. No. 1 Pembroke jumped out to a nine-point lead in the first quarter and did enough to keep No. 2 Portsmouth at bay for a 49-40 win at Lundholm Gymnasium at the University of New Hampshire.

It's the second Division II title in a row for Pembroke, and the program's sixth in Class I/Division II.

Kafani Williams led the Spartans (21-1) with 22 points and 11 rebounds, going 8 of 16 from the field and 6 of 8 at the free throw line, while Welch added 15 points, as Pembroke took control of the game early.

"You don't know what you don't know," Pembroke coach Matt Alosa said of Portsmouth's box-and-one defense. "When they did that to Pat, we could break that down, and after (the regular-season game), many teams tried to box-and-one us, and we figured it out.

"You saw that in this game. We got them out of it because we know how to attack it now. We made some baskets. We did our job. If they can stay in the box-and-one the entire night, that means it’s working and we’re in trouble."

Portsmouth coach Jim Mulvey knew the Spartans would be ready for it, but wanted to use the defense because it had worked well before.

"We wanted to show it to them because it was effective, but coach Alosa had some nice sets for it, so we had to get out of it," Mulvey said. "Once we went man and started pressuring the ball and got better on our rotations and double-teams, it was at our tempo, versus the whole first half. That was their tempo."

The Clippers (19-3) got 15 points from Donovan Phanor while Pat Glynn added 10 points and grabbed eight rebounds.

Pembroke led by 10 points going into the fourth quarter and after a layup by Williams, the lead was 39-27 for the Spartans. But Portsmouth increased its pressure, forcing Pembroke into some turnovers, and the Clippers went on a 9-2 run to make it a five-points game, 41-36, with 5:08 left to play.

Seven of Pembroke's 15 turnovers came in the fourth quarter, but although Portsmouth had plenty of opportunities to get even closer, the Clippers couldn't. In the second half, they shot just 8 of 29 from the field.

"We had so many opportunities when we had cut it to five and the ball just wouldn't go in," Mulvey said. "None of these guys are going to quit. I knew we were going to give them a run. When it got to five, we had two or three possessions to cut it to three, and we couldn't get over the hump. Credit to them, too, they played a great game."

Neither team scored for more than three minutes, until a Welch layup made it 43-36. After another Portsmouth miss, Williams muscled his way to a rebound and scored to pushed the lead back to nine points.

"We knew they were going to make a run and we knew what we needed to do," Williams said. "We needed to calm down and focus on defending them and limit their run."

The Spartans did and took home their second title in a row.