Success started long ago for Milford basketball

Everyone knows the key players for the Milford High School boys basketball team.

The Spartans made a name for themselves by winning a championship a year ago, and after finishing this regular season undefeated, they’re trying to embark on even more history.

Everyone knows the talent Milford puts on the floor for every game, but it’s what the Spartans know about each other that has the team four wins away from back-to-back championships.

“We know each other very, very well,” Mike Mitchell said. “I know Jamie (Holder), I know Mike (O’Loughlin), I know Kyle (Nelson). Sometimes we don’t have to look at each other and we already know what we’re doing. It’s eye movement. One eye movement and we know it’s a back door. One eye movement and we know it’s an alley-oop. It’s that easy and it kind of puts us over other teams.”

It’s hard to defend a team that knows what it’s going to do even before it does it.

“If we bring a solid effort, we’re a tough team to beat,” Milford coach Dan Murray said. “This year, if we bring our game, they’re going to have to bring their A-plus-plus game.”

Murray knows firsthand what it takes to win a championship in Milford, having helped the Spartans to their first title in 1972. That season, his junior year, Milford moved up to Class L and took out Manchester Central in the final.

“Back then, it was even bigger because it was two towns (Milford and Amherst),” Murray said. “We were in Class L that year also, so we really came out of nowhere.”

Two years later, after Murray had graduated and Milford had moved back down to Class I, the Spartans won again.

And though the program, and the town, had to wait 38 years for another title, not much was different when the team won last season. It’s now just Milford that can lay claim to the title, and those fans from the 1970s are a few years older.

“There were a whole bunch of people that were thrilled again,” Murray said. “Now they’re in their 80s and 90s, so it was a huge thrill. People stop me in that parking lot, and we couldn’t go anywhere without people stopping their cars and saying something.”

Passion for basketball

Mitchell can’t remember when he began playing basketball, but he’s sure he’s always had a ball in his hand. Holder’s father got him involved in a number of sports, but basketball was the one he gravitated to.

The sport has run in the O’Loughlin family, and the senior can remember watching numerous relatives play for their own teams.

Nelson began playing in seventh grade, when he decided to try out for the middle school team that the other three would also make.

“We all kind of realized we had something special,” Nelson said.

Before middle school, the other three had opportunities to play together, but also got some experience playing apart.

“When we were younger, I was on one AAU team and Jamie was on one and Mike was on another,” O’Loughlin said. “I think it gave us an opportunity to play with other people and experience different players. It made us grow quite a bit.”

By the time they were teamed up in middle school, each had a foundation for his own basketball identity. And once they were in eighth grade, it all came together.

“When we were in eighth grade, we won a championship,” O’Loughlin said. “We knew we were the best team when we were eighth graders, we figured we were just going to carry it up and work hard and try to do the same thing.”

Separated

Since becoming the Milford coach four years ago, Murray has taken his varsity players over to the middle school to watch basketball games. It was during that first year that he saw something special.

“They played pretty good at that point,” Murray said. “They had a nice awareness of the floor, they were good as a group.”

After winning the middle school title, Mitchell assumed that group would get to play together throughout high school. That didn’t end up being the case.

“We said this is going to be our team for the next four years,” he said. “We got split up.”

O’Loughlin not only made varsity, but started as a freshman, a move that Murray admitted was done to fill a need for a player. Mitchell and Nelson spent most of the year on junior varsity, although Mitchell dressed for a few varsity games at the end of the year. Holder spent the season on the freshmen team.

“It was tough, but we knew that as sophomores, we’d get to play together,” Holder said.

The following year, they did play together on the varsity, and thanks to the presence of senior Jasmin Handanovic, none had to worry about being the focal point of the team.

“It gave him a nice supporting cast,” Murray said. “We had a leader and a supporting cast, and as the season went along, they started to step up and play better.”

Milford beat Coe-Brown at home in the first round and came close to knocking off Pembroke in the quarterfinals.

“I thought we had the better team,” Murray said. “There were a few things that we did due to immaturity.”

But those lessons, and a few others, would be learned the next year.

Bull’s eye

The Spartans entered last season as one of the favorites to in Class I, and as the season went on and Milford continued to win games, it became the favorite.

“Whoever we play, when Milford is on their schedule, it’s always a circled game,” O’Loughlin said. “It’s one of their biggest of the year. They’re all trying to come and beat us because that’s their game.”

With a corps group of juniors, the Spartans knew they’d likely have two chances to try to win at least one title. If Milford was only going to win one, the players didn’t want to wait.

“We were thinking, we’re all juniors, although we have next year, this is our chance,” Mitchell said.

Murray was glad to hear his players take on that kind of attitude.

“That was a big teaching point last year, there are only so many opportunities in life, when you’ve got one in front of you, you better grab it,” he said. “Next year, you just don’t know what it’s going to be. If they had said ‘oh we have another shot next year,’ you know what, you’re not going to be good enough to win it next year because you’re not tough enough to win it this year.”

Winning last year made this year’s bull’s eye even bigger, but so far, the Spartans have managed. They’ve had just three games decided by 10 points or less – two wins over Souhegan and a one-point win over Oyster River.

Despite this year’s regular-season success, there are concerns. Murray worries often about what happens when his team plays selfishly, getting away from the things that make its offense nearly unstoppable. So far, it hasn’t hurt Milford, but it could.

“We bring up the Trinity team from a few years ago that had six Division I (college) players and got beat by Salem, which had one Division II player,” he said. “It was because they each said ‘I’m going to take over and win the game for us.’ They got beat.”

But unlike that Trinity team, Milford knows what it takes to win in the playoffs. And if the Spartans can get four more playoff wins, everyone will remember this group of Milford basketball players.