Pittsfield holds off Wilton-Lyndeborough in boys basketball opener

WILTON – Jason Darrah thought there was a chance that one team might take a double-digit lead early in Friday’s Division IV boys basketball opener.

He just wouldn’t have guessed it was his Pittsfield Middle High School team taking that lead.

The Panthers opened the game with a 13-0 run and survived a second-half rally by Wilton-Lyndeborough to take a 55-44 victory in the season opener for both teams.

“We knew coming into to Wilton that it was going to be a tough game,” Darrah said. “(W-L coach) Sean (Young) always has his guys playing hard. It’s one of those places that you look forward to playing at because you know the fans are going to be involved.

“I told my guys they’re going to come out like gangbusters and don’t be surprised if we’re down by 10 when I call my first timeout. Basketball is a game of runs. They came back.”

The Warriors needed just two minutes in the third quarter to erase a 10-point halftime deficit and take a 34-30 lead. But from there, Pittsfield regrouped while W-L struggled from the field, as the Warriors were outscored 25-10 the rest of the way.

Ryan Perras led all scorers with 16 points for Pittsfield while Bobby Lebel added 13 points of the bench and Kevin Chagnon had 11. Aaron Davis led W-L with 14 points and Steven Heck chipped in 12 markers for the Warriors.

No one had any points for W-L until 13 seconds were left in the first quarter. Down by 13, Heck hit a layup with the clock winding down and finally get the Warriors on the board.

“We built ourselves into too big of a hole,” Young said. “I probably should have used a timeout in that first quarter. I felt like what was happening was that we were just nervous with some of our shots not falling. I thought we were doing a good job of doing what I wanted them to do. But this group of guys, I’ve never met a group that has had less confidence in themselves and that is so tight.”

The Warriors were tentative to go inside against Ben Hill, Pittsfield’s 6-9 center, during the first half, often times altering shots or just staying away when the opportunity to drive presented itself. Instead, W-L took more outside shots, and not enough of them fell.

“We wanted to go right at him,” Young said. “I was nervous about trying to matchup with their size. We have one guy who is over six feet, and to me that was the big matchup.”

Heck was able to keep Hill in check offensively, limiting him to just seven points. But it was Pittsfield’s secondary scoring options that were causing problems.

“Perras was big, he hit a couple of jump shots,” Darrah said. “Kevin (Chagnon) was the story in the first half, hitting three 3s. That was the biggest thing, it gave us confidence.”

Chagnon had nine points in the first half, while Perras added seven, as the two combined for four 3-pointers.

“That’s the part that we’re having a difficult time with,” Young said. “We did the same thing last year. We go and slow down the best player on a team and the fourth or fifth or sixth option is the guy that’s hurting us.”

The Panthers scored first in the second half to go up 30-18, but the Warriors stormed back, going on a 16-0 run to take a 34-30 lead with 5:19 still to play in the third quarter. W-L created six turnovers during that stretch, getting seven points from Adam Edmunds.

Darrah was forced to take two timeouts, and whatever he told his team, it worked.

“Our guys responded and listened when we made adjustments,” Darrah said. “We went to a two-three zone on the first possession and we had a couple of guys caught out of position. The last (timeout), I said this was going to happen. It’s their gym, they’re a great team, they’re going to hit those shots. It’s our job to respond and we responded.”

The Warriors had a chance to make it a six-point lead, but a turnover led to a Pittsfield basket. Then, W-L failed to capitalize on two Panthers’ turnovers and Chagnon and Perras hit back-to-back baskets to retake the lead 36-34 with 2:11 left in the third.

Pittsfield closed out the quarter on a 13-2 run to go up 43-36 going into the fourth.

“We made the adjustments we wanted to make in the second half,” Young said. “We had a couple of possession where we just came up a little short. We had a very bad shooting night obviously.”

A couple of offensive rebounds helped W-L make it a 48-44 game with 2:37 left to play, but Pittsfield made just enough free throws in the final quarter to hang on for the win.

“This was a game we unfortunately came up short,” Young said. “The mental toughness of our team is what hurt us tonight. Early on, we had guys who got frustrated. We finally got through that and started chipping away and got back into. They call a timeout and we’re on cloud nine, but then something doesn’t go our way and we get away from everything. That’s the challenge, to see how we responded.”