When one went down, Souhegan boys basketball had others step up

Peter Pierce wasn't entirely sure of what his rotation was going to look like Tuesday night, when the Souhegan High School boys basketball team went to Hollis Brookline.

During the team's previous game, a win at Coe-Brown on Jan. 11, the Sabers saw junior Samuel Corbett go down with a potential season-ending injury, just as he was starting to get on a roll this year.

Pierce turned to two players who hadn't received as much playing time this year to fill some of the void against the Cavaliers, and both came up big.

When Souhegan was struggling in the paint on both ends of the floor in the first half, Ries Grondstra came off the bench to help the Sabers battle inside. The senior's putback late in the second quarter accounted for the team's only points in the paint in the half and helped give Souhegan a lead at the break.

And after the Sabers backcourt go into a bit of foul trouble, junior Curtis Redd was able to step right in and hit a couple of big shots to help Souhegan to a 52-38 win over HB.

"We got stuff from guys (Tuesday) who we haven’t been playing," Pierce said. "Both of those guys hadn’t had many minutes up to this point in the season. We lost (Corbett) to a broken collar bone (against Coe-Brown), so those minutes had to go somewhere and those guys did what they had to do and they made really good contributions. (Corbett) had played the best basketball of his young career the previous two games."

The depth could be an issue with the Sabers (6-1) in the midst of a tough stretch of the schedule. Souhegan is in the middle of a six-game stretch that started with a loss to Milford (3-4), followed with road wins over Coe-Brown (2-3) and HB (5-2), and ends with Pembroke (6-1) and Lebanon (4-2) at home and at Pelham (6-2).

If Souhegan is going to have success this season, a key part of that will be directly linked to the development of sophomore big man Matt McCool, who Pierce felt took another step Tuesday.

Frustrated in the first half after scoring just three points, McCool spent most of halftime in the locker room talking with Pierce about how to attack the Cavs' interior defense in the second half.

"We had a little bit of a growing up moment (Tuesday)," Pierce said. "He was frustrated in the first half and we had a little chat at halftime. We came out of the locker room late. He’s just getting nothing but better and that’s how it’s going to be for him. He’s young. When you’re that young and you get frustrated, it’s kind of hard to wrap your head around it in six minutes, or whatever it is that you get at halftime. He did it."

McCool scored 11 points in the second half, but also contributed on the glass and on defense, not to mention an assist on an alley-oop to Jeff Boehm early in the fourth quarter.

"He was a different player in the second half for sure," Pierce said. "We do count on him a lot, but in some ways, we’re starting to spread that around. Teams have to pay attention to him, and that opens up some other stuff for us. If we’re smart enough and good enough to take advantage of that, we’ll be OK."